


Somewhere Between Life and Death You’ll Find the Perfect Medium

by Annielouwho1985



Series: Steve Harrington Medium [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), Paranormal, Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:26:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22427800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annielouwho1985/pseuds/Annielouwho1985
Summary: After the events at Mooregrove Manor, Steve Harrington has tried to move on with his life. But it's hard to move on when weird stuff keeps happening, stuff like strange dreams and not being sure whether the people he's encountering are alive or dead. Steve would really like life to be normal for once. But maybe this is his new normal? He'd been warned his previous possession might make him more susceptible to spirits. Steve should have listened better.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper & Steve Harrington, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington & The Party
Series: Steve Harrington Medium [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614052
Comments: 26
Kudos: 26





	1. New Places with Familiar Faces

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Sequel to Stranger Things: A Ghost Story. That work directly influences this one. You can find that work at this link - https://archiveofourown.org/works/19839967/chapters/46980538. 
> 
> This is Part Two of the Steve Harrington Medium series. 
> 
> I do not own these characters, but I do love Stranger Things. This story will not be as long as its predecessor.
> 
> Happy reading!

June 10, 1986

Steve Harrington read the directions for the new white noise machine his mother had bought him. He wasn’t sure if light static, trickling brook, or Amazon rain forest would quiet his mind, but it was worth a try. Anything was worth a try at this point. It was going on two weeks of nightmares now, and Steve was more than over it. He hadn’t had nightmares this bad in months, not since the incidents at Mooregrove Manor had been fresh memories in his brain and fresh scars on his body. Since January, he’d thrown himself into school, and the nightmares had turned into regular school dreams and that recurring dream he had about the talking zebra.

Steve hadn’t even had nightmares during finals week, which was shocking. The talking zebra had gotten a little aggressive and snarky, but he’d been anticipating much worse given the level of stress he’d felt. Now he was successfully on the other side of his first semester and the entire summer stretched before him. He had time to spend with friends. The Byers were moving back in two days, and they’d be living with the Harringtons temporarily. Dustin was coming over for a week before he left for camp. The pressure was off. Things were good. So why now was he having terrible nightmares about never ending hallways, closed rooms, and Lillian? Those were the worst dreams, the ones where Lillian was sad, or mad, the ones where she accused Steve of damning her to an eternity of torture and agony. And Steve knew, he knew Lillian was in a better place now. He felt it with every fiber of his being, but he couldn’t convince his mind of that between the hours of midnight and seven a.m. Then there were the dreams where he could hear Dustin crying or calling for help and Steve was never able to find him in the labyrinth of never-ending doors that led to nowhere.

Maybe he was having these dreams because he didn’t have enough to occupy his mind? Maybe he should get a hobby or a summer job? No, his parents didn’t want him working, afraid of the stress that might cause, funny enough. He was taking a few summer classes, but they didn’t start until after the Fourth of July. Maybe the dreams would stop then? Steve couldn’t wait that long, and he didn’t have time to psychoanalyze all of this. He was beyond exhausted. He’d tried the over the counter options, but they’d just made it worse. He’d slept, yeah, but the dreams had been twice as horrific, and he hadn’t been able to wake himself up from them. He hadn’t felt any better the next day. He’d also tried bourbon, which had not set well with the microwave popcorn. He’d tried meditation. He’d even let Robin practice acupuncture. Nada.

His mother had finally taken pity on the baggy, black circles under his eyes and presented him with the white noise machine. Steve was skeptical, but he figured it couldn’t hurt. He selected light static and rested his head against his pillow. It wasn’t a distracting noise, just neutral. He’d give it thirty minutes and then switch to trickling brook if this didn’t work. Steve looked at the clock by his bed. 10:00 p.m., Dustin would make fun of him for going to bed so early, call him an old man. Steve from this time last year would have done the same, but he’d aged considerably since then. With a huff, Steve closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the noise. He didn’t think this was going to work. In an hour or two he’d be sitting bolt upright, heart racing and head reeling from another trip to somewhere awful. There was no way a sound machine was going to change that.

“You’re a mess,” his brain told him. “You need help.”

“Shut up,” he whispered back. “Maybe I do need help,” Steve thought to himself just before he drifted off.

Well, this was new, Steve stood or slept corrected. He’d never been here in any of his dream wanderings, wherever here was. What even was here? Steve looked around the dark, open space. The black and endless aspects of it felt familiar, but this was still different. This wasn’t Mooregrove Manor. This was- nowhere?

Steve slowly began to walk around the space. The ground beneath his feet looked like water, like it flowed, which was weird. It didn’t feel like water. He wasn’t getting wet. He paused for a moment to think about how much liquid he had to drink before bed. “This better not be a pee dream,” he muttered. At least he hadn’t set the machine to trickling brook.

Steve kept walking, but nothing about the scenery changed. He didn’t feel trapped, though. A chair might have been nice, or a couch, but this place was okay. It wasn’t scary. It just was. Maybe this was the aesthetic equivalent of static? He could live with that, if it meant he got some sleep.

“Hello!” Steve called out, even though he knew no one would answer. His voice didn’t even echo. Weird. “Jessie is a friend, yeah. I know he's been a good friend of mine,” he sang into the void. “But lately something's changed that ain't hard to define. Jessie's got himself a girl and I want to make her mine.” The space didn’t have the same acoustics as his shower, but there was no one here to criticize. “Okay.” Steve shrugged. “It is what it is.”

An hour or so later, Steve was jogging around the space. He really didn’t know what time it was. Like, that concept didn’t exist here, but calisthenics did. Even if he was sleeping, Steve had to have something to do. He wasn’t going to sit on the weird, water ground, so he might as well get some exercise in, or was it mind exercise? He didn’t know, but he should probably do more actual jogging during the day, when he was awake. Exercise might improve his sleep troubles.

Steve stopped to stretch it out a little. Was he really planning an exercise routine in some giant void? “What is your life?” he wondered aloud.

“Steve?” The voice came out of nowhere. Steve jolted and whirled around in the direction of the sound. There was Eleven, right behind him. Why was she there? Where had she come from? She looked as confused as he did. “Steve?” she asked again.

“El?” he managed to ask in return.

She reached out for him with an uncertain hand. Steve’s eyes flew open and he sat upright in his bed, his heart pounding. The clock on his dresser read two a.m. That part was familiar, as was his current state of panic. Steve took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. He felt a strange sensation on his face and reached down under his noise. There was blood under his nose. It had run down his chin and gotten on his shirt. “Shit.” Steve didn’t want to think about what that meant now. He turned the white noise machine off with a bang of his fist and got out of bed to find a tissue.


	2. Fancy Meeting You Here

June 12, 1986

Steve stood in the doorway and watched the familiar station wagon pull into the driveway. It was towing a small trailer filled with the Byers’ worldly goods and valuables. They’d be moving into one of Mr. Harrington’s fully furnished rental properties eventually, so they’d been able to sell off the rest of their furniture. Nancy and Mike practically bounced up and down on the front lawn as the car pulled into the driveway. Mike was supposed to be in school until Friday, but he must have faked a stomach bug or snuck out a back door or something. Steve was surprised the whole gang wasn’t on his front lawn, but they were all coming over later for dinner and a movie. Also, they probably didn’t want to see the epic make out session that was about to take place. So many hormones. Usually Steve would ignore all that and make sure Joyce and Will got settled in, but not today. Today, he needed to see El.

Steve hadn’t used the white noise machine since that first night. What little sleep he did get was filled with dreams that weren’t quite nightmares, but they weren’t necessarily pleasant either. He’d fought the urge to call El since he knew she was packing, and they’d be under the same roof soon enough. Maybe it’d been a coincidence? For some reason, Steve’s mind had inserted her into his dream. Besides Dustin, she was the only other person who’d really seen Lillian. They did share a connection in that regard.

Now, as the car turned off and the doors opened, Steve was sure it had been a freak occurrence. El would get out, tackle Mike, and they’d make out like the hormonal teenagers they were. Steve was overreacting. Still, there was the issue of the nosebleed. He hadn’t had a nosebleed since . . .

The slamming of the car door brought his attention back to the present. Hugs were being exchanged. Nancy and Jonathan were on each other very quickly. El hugged Mike and they exchanged a kiss. All was as it should be. Nothing to worry about. “Hello, Steve.” Joyce Byers walked up to him. 

“Hey, Ms. Byers.” Steve shook the funk out of his head and leaned in for a hug. His mother had insisted that he be a good host since she couldn’t be there to welcome the Byers. He needed to do his job.

“Are you okay?” Joyce asked as she pulled back.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Are you getting enough sleep?”

Before Steve could come up with a creative lie, El was by Joyce’s side. She had pulled herself away from Mike and was looking at Steve expectantly. “Steve,” she said very pointedly.

“Hi, El. How are you?”

“I am here now.”

That was Eleven, always direct. Steve nodded and moved out of the doorway, ushering them in. “Would you like me to show you to your rooms?” he offered.

“Aren’t they the same from last time?” Joyce asked.

“Yes,” El replied and pushed past Joyce.

“Hey, El!” Mike called out, confused as to why his girlfriend was no longer at his side. 

“Hey, Mike.” Will placed a large box in his friend’s arms. “Thanks for helping us unload.”

“Ugh.” Mike rolled his eyes. Maybe he shouldn’t have skipped sixth period after all.

Steve led El down the hallway and opened the last door on the right for her. This was where she’d stayed last time. “I guess you remember where everything is.” She stepped into the room and he followed. El closed the door with her mind and turned around to face him.

“Yeah, I don’t like it when you do that,” Steve remarked. Last time someone had mind powered the door shut on him, he’d been possessed.

“Sorry. Why were you there?”

“Why was I where?” Steve knew what she was asking. He didn’t need clarification, but it was his first inclination.

“The in between space?”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s where I go to look for things. It’s where I found Will when he was in the Upside Down, where I first saw Lillian, where I look for Hopper. Why were you there?”

“I don’t know,” Steve replied truthfully. 

“Were you looking for someone?”

“I don’t know,” he said again, frustration mounting in his voice. “I was sleeping.”

Something seemed to click for El. “I used to do that, go there in my sleep, before I could control it.”

“Is that where you go when you do the thing with your eyes and the blindfold and the white noise?” Something clicked for Steve, too. “White noise machine.”

“I see people there, but they don’t see me,” El continued on. “The Demogorgon saw me, and Billy saw me when he was possessed by the Mindflayer.” El’s words caught in her throat. She was up in Steve’s face in an instant, taking his face in her hands.

“What are you doing?” Her gaze was intense, and she wouldn’t let him pull away. How was she this strong for a fifteen-year-old girl?

“Seeing if you’re possessed.”

“I think I would know.”

“You didn’t know last time,” she countered.

“That was my fist time. I’m more experienced now,” Steve sighed.

El stared at him a moment more. “I think you’re you.”

“Thanks.”

“Has anything else come back?” she asked.

“Like what?” Steve fidgeted with the edge of the bedspread. This interrogation was bringing back less than pleasant memories. 

“Have you moved anything with your mind?”

“No.”

“Have you tried?”

“No. Why would I?”

“Did you see anyone else in the Between Space?”

“No.” He was getting tired of this game.

“See anything else?”

“No. They’re going to come look for us.” Steve pointed to the closed door.

“We have to try it again,” El decided.

“What?”

“We have to find each other again in the Between Space.”

Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to go back there now, now that he knew what it was. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“We have to know. We can’t hide things, remember? Our Constitution?”

And Steve did remember their Constitution. They’d signed it right out there on his coffee table. “How do we do it then?”

“When you go to sleep tonight, do what you did last time. I’ll be looking for you.”

Steve swallowed uncomfortably. “Should we tell the others first?”

El chewed on her bottom lip. “We’ll tell them tomorrow. We have a meeting at Mike’s house.”

Steve was about to protest when Joyce opened the door. It was obvious from the expression on her face that she knew something was up. “It’s taking a while to see a room you’ve seen before,” she commented. “We could use the help unloading the truck. Trailer has to be returned by 5:00.”

“Steve was fixing something in the closet,” El quickly replied. “It was broken.”

Joyce nodded. “Okay, well, it can wait until we get the boxes in.” She looked at them both again before slowly walking off.

El moved past Steve. “What about hiding things?” he whispered to her.

“We’re not hiding. Hopper called it buying time,” she responded.

Joyce popped back into the doorway and gave them both a start. “I’m serious, you two.”

Suddenly there was a bang in the closet behind them. “What was that?” Steve asked.

“I think that thing in the closet broke again.” El replied.

Steve swallowed a curse and opened the closet door. Sure enough, the shelves were on the floor. El followed Joyce out. Steve sighed and reached into the closet. “You didn’t have to really break it,” he muttered. He picked up some odd hook and a screw. “I don’t even know what this goes to.”

It was ten that night, and Steve was tired again. There was no way he was going to bed early this night, though. His living room was overflowing with people. The whole gang was there. Fortunately, they had all been talking about their summer plans and then they’d decided to watch a movie, so he hadn’t had to entertain too much. There were plenty of distractions, and only Robin and Joyce kept bugging him about how tired he looked. Also, El kept shooting him pointed looks, but he was doing his best to ignore those. He still wasn’t a hundred percent on board with her plan, but he figured there was no other way to know for sure.

When midnight finally rolled around, Steve couldn’t fight it anymore. He was about to fall asleep sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch, and he really didn’t want to have any surprises out here in front of everyone. With a yawn, he got to his feet. “I think I’m gonna turn in,” he announced to the gathered masses.

“Okay, old man,” Dustin quipped.

“You’ll get there, too, kid,” Robin was quick to assure. 

Dustin leaned over the back of the couch as Steve walked around. “You’re not gonna wait until the movie is over?”

“Dustin, I’ve seen this movie a hundred times.” He gestured at the TV. “And you’re gonna be moving in here for a week on Monday, we’ll get plenty of quality time before camp, trust me.”

“Plenty of driving time,” Dustin added with his toothy grin. 

“Yes,” Steve sighed. Dustin had gotten his learners’ permit a few weeks ago, and Steve had promised to take him on many lessons once school was out.

“Good night, all. See you tomorrow.”

“Good night, Steve,” Joyce replied. “Get some sleep.”

“I’ll try, Ms. Byers.” Steve swallowed another lump in his throat and headed for his room.

“I’m getting tired, too,” El announced after he left. “I’m going to bed.”

“Are you serious?” Mike asked.

“Dude, she moved today, it was a long day,” Max took up for her.

Mike looked at El with pleading eyes. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and we’ll have the whole summer together.”

“Except that week you go on vacation with Max.” He shot the redhead an incredulous look.

“That’s right. We’re gonna have the best damn time ever,” Max assured. Mike rolled his eyes.

“Good night,” El told the room as she left.

“Night, sweetheart.” Joyce caught her hand and gave it a little squeeze as she passed.

“I don’t see why your vacation has to be girls only,” Mike told Max.

“I do.” Max snagged a pretzel from the bowl and leaned back with confidence.

“Don’t try, man,” Lucas advised. “I’m not even invited.”

A few rooms down the hall, Steve got ready for bed as usual. As he pulled up the covers, he reached over and turned on the white noise machine. He closed his eyes and took a breath. He wasn’t sure if he wanted anything to happen or not, and he was still debating it when he fell asleep.

Steve was there again, in the Between Space, or whatever El had called it. It hadn’t been a fluke occurrence. Now to find her. But how the hell did he do that? They should have talked about this more. “Hello, El?!” he called out into the void. There was only silence. “El, are you here?! It’s Steve!” He scoffed at himself. “Who else would it be, dumbass?”

Maybe El hadn’t gone to bed? Maybe she was still out in the living room watching movies? What was he supposed to do in the meantime, sit and wait? Right, there wasn’t a chair or anything here.

Steve decided to do exactly what he’d done the last time. He jogged and he sang. He’d already made it through half of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. album when he heard her. “Steve?”

El’s voice was unmistakable. Steve stopped and turned around. There she was, just like the other night. 

“You found me.”

“You really like Bruce Springsteen.”

He blushed. “Uh, yeah, he’s the Boss.”

“Boss of what?”

“No, that’s his nickname.”

“Oh, right.”

They just stared at each other for a moment. “What now?” Steve finally asked.

El didn’t answer. She held out her hand. Steve took a deep breath and slowly moved his hand out to take hers. 

At that moment, there was a loud ringing sound. He was jolted awake. The sound hadn’t been coming from the Between Space, it was coming from his house. The clock on his dresser read three a.m. No way was it his alarm clock ringing. It took him a second to realize it was the smoke detector. He managed to get out of bed and open his door.

Joyce was running down the hall. “What is going on?!”

Nancy hurried out of the kitchen. “Sorry, it’s our fault. We weren’t watching the Jiffy Pop.”

“It’s all good,” Jonathan assured. “Fire’s out. Everything’s fine.”

“What were you all doing?” Joyce asked, then reconsidered. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Just, be more careful.”

Steve decided it wasn’t worth him venturing into the kitchen. He turned and looked down the hall. El was standing outside her doorway. She was looking at him, and a trickle of blood was running out of her nose. Steve reached up and realized he had a bloody nose of his own. 

Will stumbled out of his room and wiped at his eyes. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Go back to bed, honey, false alarm,” Joyce assured from down the hall.

Will stopped and looked from Steve to El. He saw both of their noses before they managed to wipe the evidence away. “It’s too early for this. I’m going back to bed,” he grumbled and returned to his room.


	3. Performance Anxiety

Chapter Three

Performance Anxiety

June 13, 1986

“Hear ye. Hear ye,” Lucas announced. “I call this basement meeting officially to order.” Lucas banged the gavel on the nearest table with more than enough force. He looked quite pleased with himself.

“Dude, that’s an antique,” Mike commented.

Lucas ignored him and sat down next to Max. She patted his leg. “Feel better now that you got to bang the gavel?”

“Yep.” He nodded.

“Thank you, Lucas.” Joyce assumed the floor, hastily written agenda in hand. “This evening’s agenda is rather light, more celebratory in nature. This will probably be the last time we meet before summer’s end. I know you all are busy. Busy staying out of trouble and living your normal, teenage lives,” she stressed.

Joyce glanced at the paper in her hand. She probably shouldn’t have written it in the front seat of a moving car. Jonathan had always been heavy on the brakes. “First of all, a round of congratulations to Nancy and Jonathan for graduating from high school.” Applause filled the basement. “And another round of congratulations to the six of you for finishing the ninth grade.”

“Finally,” Lucas sighed. He looked at Mike. “It will be less awkward when we’re sophomores, right?”

“No,” Mike replied.

“You’re thinking of juniors,” Will added.

“But at least we’ll be together next year,” Lucas pointed out. Everyone could celebrate that.

“A special congratulation to Robin on her new job as manager of the Family Video,” Joyce continued.

“Thank Keith and his sticky fingers, and the surveillance camera that caught him,” Robin remarked.

“And of course, a very heartfelt congratulations to Nancy for her acceptance into Harvard University. We’re so proud of you.” Joyce took a moment to swallow her tears. “And congratulations to my dear Jonathan for going to Bunker Hill College. I can’t believe you two are moving to Boston.” Joyce couldn’t fight it anymore, and she started to cry in earnest.

“Mom, it’s not the ends of the Earth.” Jonathan stood up and hugged her.

“I know, but it’s not Indiana.” 

Outside the Wheeler’s house, Steve quickly parked his car and ran to the front door. He’d meant to be there on time. He’d also meant to have a conversation with El prior to this evening’s meeting, but neither of those things had happened. His Aunt Rhea was in town, his mother’s sister and literally his only relative. His parents were off on their marriage counseling retreat, so his mother had left him with strict instructions to do two things, welcome the Byers and spend time with Aunt Rhea. He’d spent from 8:00 a.m., when she’d unceremoniously shown up with donuts, until 5:00 p.m. when he’d helped her board her bus, with the woman. If he never heard the nickname Stevie Bear another day in his life, he’d die a happy man.

Steve sighed and knocked on the front door. A few moments later, Karen Wheeler answered. “I was wondering where you were,” she commented.

“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler.”

She gave him a quick hug. “Everyone else is down in the basement.” She sniffed his shirt. “New cologne?”

“No, my Aunt Rhea,” he remarked.

Mrs. Wheeler gestured him in. “Go on down, pizza will be here soon.” He nodded and stepped past her into the house. “Tell Joyce she doesn’t have to stay down there with you all,” Karen called after him. “You’re not kids, you don’t need a chaperone anymore.”

“Will do,” he replied. Internally, he fought back a rueful laugh. What the other parents in Hawkins didn’t know could fill an entire series of encyclopedias.

“Steve!” a chorus, consisting mostly of Dustin, shouted as he appeared on the stairs.

The older boy halted in his tracks. “What’d I miss?” He took in the scene of Joyce weeping and Jonathan comforting her. “Who died?” He quickly scanned the room and did a headcount. 

Joyce wiped her eyes and pointed at Steve. “And congratulations to Steve for finishing his first semester of college.” Another round of applause filled the air.

“And for making the Dean’s list,” Robin added over the noise.

Steve blushed and awkwardly waved his hand. He took another step and somehow managed to trip his way down to the bottom. “You okay?” Robin asked.

“But gravity is still a struggle,” Mike commented.

“Just, uh, wanted to make an entrance.” Steve shook it off and claimed the nearest, available seat. “Sorry I’m late, but I had a family situation. My Aunt Rhea was in town.”

“Oh.” Nancy made a face. Apparently, she had met the woman.

“Was that the shrill woman who exuberantly gave us donuts this morning?” Will asked.

“Yes.”

“Is she always that excited?” Jonathan wanted to know.

“Yes,” Steve replied again, and Nancy seconded. 

“And the volume of her voice?” he pressed on.

“Doesn’t change,” Steve concluded. Jonathan nodded in sympathy.

“Moving on from announcements to old business,” Joyce called the attention back to her. “We have not been able to locate Hopper yet, but we are still trying. El is looking, within reason, and Murray is looking, too. He’s out there, and we will find him.” Joyce looked directly at El and nodded. El took a breath and nodded in return.

Joyce took her own breath and looked back at her sheet. “Anyone have any new business they’d like to discuss?”

It was a silent for a second, and then El stood up. “Steve and I have a presentation.”

“Steve and I have a presentation?” Mike was so confused.

Steve was even more confused. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “I am not prepared for this.”

“I feel like you said that a lot in high school,” Robin quipped.

“Um, okay.” Joyce yielded the floor to El. 

“Steve and I have been meeting in the Between Space,” she began.

“You’ve been what?” Mike wanted to know.

“What does that mean?” Lucas asked.

Steve stood and held up his hand over the commotion. “Okay, wait. I’m going there in my sleep. I have no control over it. I am not actively seeking her out. She sought me, or she found me. El found me.”

Mike put his head in his hands. “I don’t know how to interpret this.”

“The Between Space being the place where you find people, right, El?” Joyce pressed for clarification.

“Yes,” she replied.

“I knew it!” Will announced, taking everyone by surprise. “I knew you all were doing something fishy and other worldly last night.”

Mike groaned. “There’s gotta be a better way to talk about this, different words.”

“Steve, you can go to the Between Space and you didn’t tell me?!” Dustin sounded hurt. 

“Dustin, it just happened.”

“When did it happen?”

“A couple of nights ago, for the first time,” Steve confessed.

“Before the party at your house?” Dustin pressed. Steve averted his eyes and nodded. “Dude, not cool.”

“I thought it was a fluke,” Steve hurried to explain.

“But you saw El the first time, didn’t you?” Joyce asked.

“I was looking for Hopper, and I saw Steve,” El explained.

“What else did you see?” Nancy wanted to know. She looked at the older boy.

“Nothing, a lot of blackness and water,” Steve replied.

“Are you sure it wasn’t a pee dream?” Lucas asked.

“It wasn’t a pee dream, and El’s the only person or being I’ve seen there.”

“Do you have any other powers?” Dustin was very serious.

“I don’t have any powers.”

“Can you move stuff with your mind, like you did when you were possessed?” Jonathan tossed out there.

“Oh, you haven’t been reading any old diaries or going to antique shops, have you?” Max wanted to know.

“No,” Steve replied, a bite to his tone. This was going about as well as his high school group presentations had gone.

“He’s not possessed. I checked,” El assured.

“Are you sure you can’t move stuff with your mind?” Lucas asked.

“Yes,” Steve huffed. He had tried to move things with his mind after Mooregrove Manor, just to see if he still could. He’d even burst a blood vessel in his eye trying to get a saltshaker to slide across the kitchen counter.

“Move this ashtray.” Lucas held up an ashtray.

“Lucas, I can’t.”

“What else are you keeping from me?” Dustin flat out demanded.

“Move this Hummel.” Lucas held up a small, porcelain figurine.

“I can’t,” Steve stressed again. He could feel his blood pressure rising.

“Move this Smurf doll.”

“Stop.” Max took the doll from Lucas’s hands.

“Move this car.” Lucas produced a Matchbox Car from under the couch cushion.

“Mike, you really need to put away your toys,” Will commented.

“I CAN’T MOVE ANYTHING!” Steve shouted.

The car shot out of Lucas’s hand, but it wasn’t Steve who’d done it. It was El. “He said stop.”

“Thanks.” Steve took a breath and tried to regroup.

“What now?” Robin asked after a moment of tense silence.

“We try again,” El replied.

“I don’t know if I want to try again,” Steve confessed. 

“You have to try,” Dustin spoke up. “You have to know.”

Steve took another breath. “I guess we can try again tonight.” Mike groaned for a second time. Max hit him with a pillow. 

“No, we try now, here,” El decided.

“Here? I’ve only done it in my sleep. I don’t know if I can do it here.” Steve looked around at all the expectant faces. It was more than a little nerve wracking.

“That’s the only way I learned, by trying again and again,” El assured.

Steve didn’t want to let his friends down, so he swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yeah, we can try.”

Steve didn’t know how he got himself into these situations, he really didn’t. But here he was, seated pretzel style on the Wheeler’s basement floor with a homemade blindfold tied around his eyes and static playing in the background. El was in front of him, and even though he couldn’t see them, he could feel all the eyes watching them. He was 99% sure they were about to watch him fail. Talk about performance anxiety. Steve sighed and tried to focus on the static, but his mind was too full of thoughts. On top of that, he could feel Dustin breathing down his neck, literally.

“Dustin, back up.”

“I’m trying to help,” the boy replied.

“With what?”

“Shh,” El chastised.

“With the nosebleed,” Dustin whispered. “I don’t want it to get on your shirt.” 

Steve sighed and tried to readjust his posture, but he could still feel Dustin right there hovering. He pulled the blindfold up and there was the younger boy, sitting right beside him. His outstretched hand held a tissue right under Steve’s nose. “You have got to back up.”

“I don’t want you to get blood on this shirt. My mom bought it for you.”

Steve grunted in frustration. “Jonathan, trade shirts with me.”

Jonathan looked down at the shirt he was wearing. “Nancy got this for me.”

“Just give him your shirt,” Nancy insisted. “It’s for a good cause.”

One shirt change later, Steve was once again blindfolded and trying to concentrate on the static. Dustin wasn’t breathing down his neck anymore, but they were all still looking at him. This wasn’t going to work. “This isn’t going to work,” he confessed.

“You have to concentrate,” El told him.

“A little hard in this situation,” he pointed out.

“Hold on, I have something that might help,” Nancy spoke up. Steve heard her get up and ascend the stairs. 

There was an awkward beat and then someone, Dustin, was trying to shove tissue up his nose. Steve jerked back. “What? Stop it!”

“I’m trying to take precautions.”

“Stop,” Steve insisted.

“Why does it cause nose bleeds?” Lucas asked.

“Hormonal shifts in the body,” El replied with an eerily mechanical precision. This factoid had no doubt been drilled into her at the lab she was once a captive of.

“Great,” Steve remarked. He had enough regular hormonal issues to deal with already.

Nancy was coming back down the stairs. “I think this will help,” she spoke as she carefully placed a set of headphones over Steve’s ears.

“Those are mine,” Mike complained.

“You haven’t used them in years,” his sister remarked.

The headphones were a radio and they were already picking up static. Soon the sound filled Steve’s ears. He thought for one more, brief second that this wouldn’t work, and then he was no longer sitting in the basement. He was back in the Between Space.

“And I’m back,” he told the void. 

“Steve,” El spoke, and she was right there in front of him.

He jumped a little and clutched his chest. “Don’t do that.”

“We found each other faster this time.”

“Uh, yeah, great.” He looked around. “What now?”

El held out her hand again, like she’d done last night. Steve regarded it for a second before taking it. Nothing happened. Nothing changed.

“I, uh, thought something would happen,” he confessed.

“Me, too.”

“What do we do?”

El stood up and he stood with her. They continued to hold hands. “Let’s see if you can find our friends.”

On the other side, the party watched in almost silence. “Do you think they’re in there?” Will whispered.

A slight trickle of blood started to slide out of El’s nose. Steve’s followed soon after. “Yeah, I’d say they’re in there,” Max replied.

“I knew it,” Dustin hissed. He tore off another sheet of tissue paper and carefully held it under Steve’s nose.

“Do you think they’re looking at us?” Lucas asked.

The group looked at one another. “I wonder which one of us they’re looking at right now?” Will added. They looked back at El and Steve. A second later, Lucas gasped, startling them all.

“Sorry, I got so tense, I forgot to breathe.”

Back in the Between Space, El was looking squarely at Mike. “Who am I looking at?” she asked Steve again. 

“I don’t know,” was his only reply. He didn’t see anybody besides El.

“Mike, I’m looking at Mike.”

“I can’t see him.”

“Think about him and maybe you can.”

As much as it pained Steve to do so, he thought about Mike. But no amount of thinking about the temperamental teen would make him materialize. “I can’t, El.”

She tugged on his hand and led him in a different direction. “Who am I looking at now?”

He saw nothing, only blackness. “I don’t know.”

“Robin. Can’t you see her?”

He shook his head. Steve wanted to pull his hand away. He felt like he was failing the girl. Steve tried to move his hand, but El held fast. She really did have a strong grip. In that moment, the void seemed to flicker. For a minute it looked like a completely different room. Not the Wheeler’s basement, but somewhere else. Even Steve saw it, but then it was right back to the same darkness.

“What was that?” El asked.

“I don’t know.” He really wished he had a different answer.

There was a loud knock from the real world, and then Karen Wheeler’s loud announcement, “Who wants pizza?”

Steve dropped El’s hand. The void disappeared. He was back to the here and now. As the others got up, he slowly removed his blindfold and looked at El. She was looking back at him. Was that disappointment he saw on her face, frustration? Steve couldn’t tell. He really hated to let any of them down. 

El looked away and took the tissue offered to her by Will. 

Steve removed the headphones and placed them on the floor. This had been a major bust. 

“You’ve got a little something, right there.” Dustin leaned over and wiped at his nose.

“Would you stop?!”


	4. “Time After Time”

Chapter Four

“Time After Time”

June 13, 1985 (later) 

Steve stared at his bedroom ceiling. The blades of the fan went round and round. The steady motion was blissfully mind numbing. Steve didn’t want to think about the Between Space, the meeting that evening, his persistent dreams, any of it. He was perfectly content to recline in the silence. He was not going to turn on the white noise machine, thank you very much. 

Steve fought the urge to look at the clock on his dresser. It was late and he wasn’t asleep, even though he was so very tired. Maybe he should put the clock in a drawer where it couldn’t mock him? He sighed and was about to roll over and bury his head under a pillow or two when there was a knock at his door. Before he could ask who it was, El was standing in his doorway.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she began.

Steve held up his hand. “No, whatever you’re thinking, no.”

El was not easy to dissuade, though, and Steve knew this. “Something happened in there, Steve.” He groaned and flopped back on the bed, finding the nearest pillow and shoving it over his head. “You saw it, the space changed.”

“You did that,” he protested.

“No, you did.”

Steve sighed and sat up, so much for blissful ignorance. “We have to go back,” El persisted. She was now perched on the edge of his bed. Steve sighed again. “But this time you lead.”

“Okay.” His response was small but straightforward.

“Okay?”

“Sure, why not.” Steve shrugged. There was no fighting this. It was already super late, and he clearly wasn’t going to get any sleep until they tested her theory. Neither of them were.

El smiled. “Come on.” She got off the bed and gestured for him to follow as she left the room. Steve ran his hand through his hair. Every part of him was tired, but he tossed off his covers and went along. El led him to the main bathroom, where the lights were already on. It was a ridiculously large bathroom, like embarrassingly large. There were two towels folded up on the floor like cushions. A box of tissues sat between them and there were two ties from his father’s massive collection placed on top of the towels. 

“You planned this out, huh?” Steve was not surprised.

“Bathrooms are the best spaces for this.”

“Noted.”

El closed the door and moved over to the tub. She reached in to turn the water on but looked back at Steve. “Do you need to use the bathroom first?”

He scrunched up his nose. “No. Let’s just do this.”

El turned the faucet on until the water was a steady background noise. She picked up a tie and sat on one of the towels. Steve followed suit. With another, deep sigh, he secured the tie around his eyes. The water was actually a nice, soothing sound. Maybe he should have picked trickling brook as opposed to light static? Maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess if he’d picked that noise in the first place?

And then again, maybe not, because here he was back in the Between Space, and there was El, right in front of him. “Almost like we never left,” Steve quipped. El held out her hand expectantly. “Right. What am I supposed to do again?”

“Take my hand and lead me where you want to go.”

“I want to go back to bed.”

El gave him a look. Steve took her hand. He really didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Nothing changed when they took hands, just like the last time. “So we just stand here?”

“I don’t know. You’re leading.”

Steve looked around, darkness in either direction. “Let’s go this way.” He turned right and they started to walk. The silence between them and the darkness seemed endless. At some point, Steve looked down at their joined hands. “Maybe we don’t tell Mike about this. He might blow a fuse.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Mike is my friend. He’s my boyfriend. He’s not an electric appliance.”

“No, it’s a figure of speech.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

“What really makes no sense is arguing about the concept of sense in an endless void,” Steve countered.

“Between Space,” El corrected.

“It’s my void, I can call it what I want.” Steve came to a halt, tugging on her hand.

“Shared space,” she insisted.

“Endless void,” he hissed in reply.

“Door.”

El’s words caught Steve off guard. He looked up and sure enough there was a door in front of them, but it didn’t look like his bathroom door. It was a large wooden door, and it looked pretty aged. It definitely needed a new coat of paint.

“Did you do that?” he finally managed to ask.

“No.”

“What do we do?”

“Go through it.”

Steve looked at her. That seemed like a terrible idea. He felt like he’d seen this movie and that was never the right answer. “Go through it,” El repeated, giving him a little push with their joined hands. “I am coming, too.”

Steve reached out with his other hand and quickly knocked on the door. He didn’t know why he knocked. El didn’t seem to know why he knocked either. Fortunately, nothing knocked back. With the same, shaky hand, Steve turned the knob and opened the door. Suddenly, they were in a very different space. It was a house, but it was dark and run-down. No one had lived here in a while.

Steve turned and the door behind them was closed. He opened it, but there was no void, there was another bathroom, a very different bathroom from the one their bodies were currently sitting in. “Where’d we go?” He was trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“We’re still in the bathroom,” El assured. 

“Okay, but where are our minds?”

El looked around the dimly lit house. “I don’t know this place. Do you?”

Steve swallowed his fight or flight response and took a moment to examine where they were. He was surprised to find he did know this place. He started to walk and El stayed by his side. “This, uh, this is the house that was here before ours. It was old, turn of the 20th century. No one had lived in it for a long time. Mom wanted to save it, but Dad wanted a state of the art house. So, he, uh, he tore it down. It was the land he really wanted, the woods in our backyard and space for a pool.”

“You saw the house?”

“Once, when we walked through it, but I saw it from the outside a lot. To a kid it was like a haunted house.”

“Jonathan took us to a haunted house for Halloween. It was stupid,” El commented.

“I don’t think this house was actually haunted.” Steve stopped and scrutinized their surroundings. “But I don’t really know.” He tightened his grip on El’s hand. “Don’t let me get possessed.”

“I won’t,” she assured.

As they approached what looked like a large, parlor type room, El snuck a glance over her shoulder. The hallway behind them was getting dark, fast, and that darkness was coming right at them. “Steve!” she called out.

He looked over his shoulder and shouted. “Come on!” He held her hand fast as they ran into the parlor. It did no good, though, because the darkness swept past them, but it didn’t plunge them into utter blackness. Instead, it changed everything around them. The old house was gone. Now they were standing in a smaller, log structure. It was very simple with light filtering in through the open windows.

“Now where are we?” El asked.

“I don’t know.” Steve had never been here. Even though he was rattled, he couldn’t remember ever being in a place that looked like this. The house only had two rooms. 

El led them to the window and looked outside. She pointed. “The woods, the woods behind your house.”

“Maybe this was the house that was here first?” 

“Are we going back in time?”

Steve made an odd noise in his throat. “How is this possible? Have you ever done this before?”

Before El could answer his question, she noticed that same darkness was creeping up in the corner of the log house. “Steve!” she called again. He looked back and saw it, too. 

“What is going on?!” he screamed as he pulled her with him out the open door. As they stumbled onto the lawn, the darkness washed over the house and transformed it into a log structure in progress. The darkness brushed past them, leaving the yard largely unchanged.

Steve whirled around and looked at the woods. It did look oddly similar to the trees that were behind his house today, but there were much bigger ones mixed in with the smaller ones. Those trees were long gone now. Near the edge of the wood line, there was a smaller structure being built. It looked like a shed, or maybe a small barn. Steve approached it slowly, taking El with him. 

“Those rocks.” He pointed to the large outcropping of rocks sticking out of the ground. “They’re in my back yard. Mom always told me not to go down to them, said I might get hurt.”

“Did you ever climb on them?”

“Just once. They felt weird, like someone was watching me.”

“Someone in the woods?” El’s eyes scanned the trees.

“No, like someone was right there, standing next to me.” Steve began to walk around the structure. Only one side was complete. A ladder was resting against the top beam on the other side. His eyes looked down the ladder and then his feet halted. “El.” He turned, trying to shield the girl from what she was about to see. It was too late, though.

“Is he?” El pointed to the body lying on the ground. The man’s head was turned at an odd angle. It was obvious his neck was broken. He was dressed in a dirty, white shirt and plain, brown pants. His large, brown hat had rolled off his head. 

“We should go.” Steve tried to push El in the other direction.

“Scuse me folks, have you seen my hammer?” The man stepped around from the other side of the building. But how could he be the same man, because that man was dead on the ground?

El and Steve looked from the body on the ground to the man standing in front of them. They were identical. Steve wasn’t sure who screamed first. In that moment, El let go of his hand.

El ripped the tie from her face and took a deep breath. She wiped her hand under her nose and grabbed a tissue to help her clean up. “Steve,” she started to say but the words stopped in her throat. Steve was still blindfolded. He wasn’t moving. “Steve?” She crawled over to him and took him by the shoulders. He felt stiff, like weirdly stiff. “Steve?” She shook him a little. No response. “Steve?!” El tore the blindfold off his eyes. They were shut tight. “Steve?!” No response at all. He hadn’t come back with her.

Where had El gone? Steve tried to look for her as he was tearing back across the lawn, away from the man or men or whatever that was back there. He ran through the opening of the half-finished house to find he was right back in the parlor of the house his father had torn down. Maybe if he retraced his steps he could get back to the bathroom in his house? El must have gone back when she’d let go of his hand. 

Steve tore down the hall and opened the door they’d first gone through. It led him back into the completed log structure. “Shit!” This wasn’t good. Now was definitely a perfect time to panic.

“Help! Help! Help!” Eleven was banging on all the doors as she ran down the hall at the Harrington’s house. 

“What’s going on?” Jonathan asked as he stumbled out of the room he shared with Will.

“I can’t get him to come back!” El grabbed Jonathan’s hand.

“What is happening?” Joyce stepped out into the hall.

“Please help!” El pulled Jonathan with her to the bathroom. “It’s Steve.” Joyce and Will followed after.

Jonathan’s bare feet slid on the floor as he entered the room. “Why is it wet?”

“I dumped water on his head.”

“Careful, it’s wet,” he instructed his family. Joyce worked her way into the room and knelt in front of Steve. He was soaked from where El had poured water on him. A steady, thin stream of blood was running down his face. His shirt was stained a nice shade of light pink. What was more concerning was the slight blue tinge to his lips. Joyce reached forward and felt his skin. It was cold, but he wasn’t shivering. He was breathing, which was good, but his breaths were much too slow for her liking.

“What were you all doing?” Jonathan asked.

“El, how long has he been under?” Joyce wanted to know.

El decided to answer Joyce first. “Two hours. We were gone for an hour, maybe, but I came back and I tried, I tried to bring him back, too.” El started to cry. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Of course not.” Joyce came over and took her hands. “Where were you all when you got separated?”

El took a breath. She didn’t know how to explain it. “Here, but a long time ago.”

“Like the past?” Will asked. “How’d you get there?”

She pointed to Steve. “He took us there.”

Joyce squeezed El’s hands. “Okay, so we need to bring Steve back to the present.”

“Mom,” Jonathan began. “How do we . . .”

Joyce waved her hand to silence him. Now was not the time for pointless questions. Now was the time for solutions. “Jonathan, I want you to slowly and carefully tilt Steve’s head back. That should help slow the nosebleed.” 

Joyce led El over to Steve and encouraged her to sit on the floor. He did not look well, and it made El feel sick. “I know you don’t want to, but I need you to go back in, all right? I need you to think hard about where you were when you got separated.”

“I’ve tried,” El sobbed.

“Try one more time.” Joyce squeezed her shoulder before tying the blindfold around El’s eyes. “I believe in you.” She placed one of her hands on top of Steve’s. “You can do it.”  
“I’m going to grab some blankets,” she whispered to Jonathan and Will before carefully leaving the room.

“Steve can travel through time?” Will looked at his older brother.

“I can’t process this right now.” Jonathan placed his hands on either side of Steve’s head and tried to tilt his head back. “Why is he so stiff?”

Will felt Steve’s neck. “It’s like rigor mortis.”

“Not helpful.” Jonathan managed to tilt Steve’s head back, but there was a definite popping sound. “Oh, shit. Sorry, Steve.”

“If we kill Steve, Dustin will kill us,” Will commented.

“We’re not killing him. He’s going to be fine. El will find him.”

“What if she can’t?”

“Again, not helpful.”

Steve ran through the same door for what felt like the thousandth time. He’d tried every possible combination of doors and rooms, but he always ended up in the same places. “You look lost, friend,” the dead guy at the end of the yard had called out to him at one point. That had just been the icing on this hell filled cake.

Steve cried out in frustration and kicked the doorjamb. What if he never got back? What happened to his body? Would he die for real? If he died out there, would his soul be trapped in here forever? Steve raised his hand to hit the wall, but a tingling in his hand stopped him. It felt like fingers, like someone else’s fingers were wrapping around his wrist. “El?”

Back in the bathroom, El stood up. “El?” Jonathan asked. “Did you find him?” 

She didn’t respond. Without removing her blindfold she took a few steps back. Then she was running forward, tackling Steve and knocking him back onto Jonathan. They all landed in the puddle.

Joyce entered the room, blankets in hand. Steve gasped and started to cough. El ripped her blindfold off and then removed Steve’s. “I found you!” she exclaimed. Steve was too busy trying not to puke to respond. His head was reeling. He felt awful. Steve gagged and Jonathan struggled to get out from under him. El held tight to his chest.

“El, sweetheart, you’re amazing, but you need to give him some space now.” Joyce gently pulled the girl from Steve’s chest. Steve gagged again and spat on the floor. Why was the floor so wet? Why was he so wet? Why were they all in the bathroom?

Joyce placed a blanket around Steve’s shoulders and helped him to sit up. “How do you feel?” she asked. His breathing was evening out, which was a good sign.

Steve thought about it for a moment and then he started to shiver. “Cold.”

“I bet.” Joyce pulled the blanket over his head and rubbed his arms. “Let’s get you off this wet floor.” She signaled to Jonathan and he helped her lift Steve off the floor.

“Ow, my neck.” Steve turned his head from side to side.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Jonathan mumbled.

“Where were you?” Will asked.

Joyce shook her head. “We have lots of fun questions to answer later, but let’s get you warm first. Will, can you clean up the bathroom?”

The four of them left the room, leaving Will behind with the sopping mess. “That’s not a fun question at all,” he remarked.

Thirty minutes later, Steve was in clean clothes. He was snuggled on the couch under a layer of blankets. Joyce was in the kitchen making hot chocolate. Steve pulled his knees closer to his chest. The events of the Between Space kept running through his mind, whether he wanted them to or not. What did it all mean? What did any of it mean?

“Hey,” El spoke softly. 

“Hey.”

“I’m sorry I let go of your hand.”

Steve shrugged. “It’s okay. Thanks for coming back for me.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long.”

“It happens.” He cracked a weak smile. “You wanna sit down?”

El nodded. She curled up on the couch beside him. 

“That was scary, huh?” He said after a moment.

“Yes.” El carefully cuddled into his side.

“What are you doing?” He asked her. He wasn’t used to El being touchy feely.

“Being scared together.”

Steve gave a light laugh. “Not very comforting.”

“Better than being scared alone.”

He couldn’t argue with that.


	5. Junior Mints Can’t Fix Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry that it's taken me so long to update this fic. I promise I never abandoned it. My mom broke her arm at the beginning of March, and I temporarily moved back in with her to help with her recovery. And then, the world sort of fell apart with the pandemic, and that occupied a lot of my time, too. As a coping mechanism, I binge watched Lucifer, and that inspired a new fic. Sadly, this story suffered for that, but I'm very happy to return to it, now. Again, sorry for the long break, but I'm back on the writing bandwagon. I hope you all are handing in there during this difficult time.

June 14, 1986

“Why are there so many boxes of Junior Mints?” Max asked. The back room of Family Video was crammed full of cases upon cases of Junior Mints. They took over the desk and the floor, barely leaving any usable space. Mike had decided to use one as a seat.

“Keith thought he could launder the money he was stealing through concessions,” Robin explained as she looked around the room. “He only ordered one kind of candy, though. He was a really shitty criminal.”

“He was really shitty at a lot of things,” Mike added.

“That guy had major problems,” Dustin agreed. “We could’ve told your boss that.”

“Well, the boss man lives in Florida, and I’m the manager now, so take as many Junior Mints as you want. Seriously, take a case of them, please,” Robin encouraged. 

“Yes!” Lucas ripped open a case and began to count the contents inside.

Mike made a face. “Why couldn’t Keith have ordered a good candy?”

Lucas looked wounded. “Junior Mints are the best . . .”

“Don’t say it.” Mike knew where he was going.

“Especially when you mix them with popcorn,” Lucas finished. He ran his tongue over his lips in anticipation. 

“That is the grossest thing ever. Why would anyone want to do that?”

“You never give it a chance!” Lucas protested.

“Guys!” Max held up her hands. “Can we give it a rest? Your last argument over this ruined Weird Science for me. I’m over it!”

As the three of them continued to discuss, Robin turned her attention to Dustin. He was oddly quiet. She offered him a box of Junior Mints. He barely cracked a smile as he accepted them. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” he replied, but he didn’t sound fine. “I’m just worried about Steve. I don’t like when we have emergency meetings.”

“I’m sure he’s fine, Dustin. He should be here in a few minutes,” Robin assured the boy.

Truth was, she was worried about Steve, as well. She could tell her friend was off. Dustin could, too, and the last time they had ignored Steve’s offness, they’d almost lost him. They weren’t going to let things get that bad again. So, when Joyce had summoned the group together for an emergency meeting, Robin had offered up the back room of Family Video as a gathering space. True, she was on the clock and couldn’t leave to meet anywhere else, but that was beside the point. Joyce wouldn’t be calling an emergency meeting on a Saturday morning if it wasn’t important. Something had changed majorly in the last twelve hours. 

The bell on the front door dinged, and Robin stepped out of the back expectantly. It wasn’t Steve or any of the others, though, it was her coworker Tad. Dustin was right on her heels, and he was equally as disappointed. “You’re not Steve,” he mumbled before returning to the back.

“Who’s that?” Tad wanted to know.

“I’m doing a focus group in the back this morning, Tad, testing some new merchandise,” Robin hurried to explain. 

“Will you be done by 11:00?”

“Maybe.” Robin shrugged. “But I have faith you can run the front until then.”

Tad did not have faith in himself. “But it’s a Saturday, in the summer, and we just restocked Back to the Future.”

“You can do it, Tad,” she assured him. Tad hesitated, looking paler than ever. “Go and check the shelves. It’s a normal day.” Robin nodded to the movie racks and Tad finally moved. 

The bell dinged again, and this time it was Steve with El and Will in tow. “You look like hell,” Robin told him.

Steve sighed. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Did you get any sleep last night?” Robin pressed.

“Not much,” Steve confessed.

“It was an adventurous night,” Will informed her.

“Steve!” Dustin ran out of the back. “You look like hell,” he spoke when he saw his friend’s face.

“Thanks, Dustin,” Steve huffed. “Anyone else want to comment on my appearance?”

“Would a complimentary candy from the top shelf help?” Robin offered, running her hand across the glass counter. The top shelf candy was the best.

Steve thought it over. “Give me a Snickers.”

“Can I have one?” Will wanted to know.

Robin regarded the younger boy. “No, there are Junior Mints in the back.”

Will made a face. “That’s not a fair substitute.”

“Give El a Snickers.” Steve indicated the girl with his head. “She had a rough night, too.”

Robin handed the candy bars over. El gave a small smile. “Thanks.” She shared a look with Steve, and they tapped their candy bars together. El began to unwrap her candy as she walked to the back room.

“What was that?” Dustin wanted to know. Steve shrugged, which wasn’t a satisfactory answer at all. He slowly moseyed to the back. Dustin looked at Robin. “Did you see that? They’re all secretive and superpowery.”

“Dustin, I’m sure you’re still his favorite, calm down.” Robin pushed him out from behind the counter. 

“That’s not the point,” Dustin protested. He bit his bottom lip. “Do you think I’m still the favorite?” She rolled her eyes and pushed him on into the room with the others.

Mike and Lucas were still engaged in the heated Junior Mints/popcorn debate. Mike had recruited Will to his team. Max and El were discussing their upcoming camping trip. “Are you packed yet?” Max asked.

“I think so,” El replied.

“I got us a case of Junior Mints.” Max patted the box she was leaning against. El broke off a piece of her candy bar and offered it to her friend.

Steve stood on the side, looking at his Snickers bar like it was an alien being. He seemed detached from reality. Robin was about to go over to him when the doorbell dinged again. She looked out to see Jonathan holding the door open as Nancy and Joyce struggled their way in with all the McDonald’s breakfast bags. 

“Yes!” Mike proclaimed as he looked out. “Breakfast is served!”

“What took you all so long?” Lucas wanted to know. “I’m starving.”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “There are like seven of you. It takes time!”

“Did you get my pancakes?” Mike asked.

“If you don’t back up and let me through, you’re going to be wearing them,” his sister warned.

“Where are we supposed to sit?” Jonathan looked around the cluttered back room.

“Pull up a case of Junior Mints and pop a squat,” Robin instructed.

“Um, you say we’re not allowed to bring food in,” Tad protested from the other side of the counter.

Robin walked over to him. “Focus group, Tad. They get perks. Now back to work with you.” Tad sighed and returned to dusting and sorting the shelves.

Twelve or so minutes later, everyone was settled, or at least perched somewhere with their breakfast. “Okay, so first order of business,” Joyce spoke over the munching. “There have been some developments.” She looked at Steve, but he didn’t seem eager to take the lead, so she kept on. “El and Steve went back to the Between Space last night and it was different. Is that the right way of saying it?” She looked at El and Steve for guidance.

“It was different,” El agreed.

“Different how?” Max asked.

“You went back?!” Dustin was aghast. “Without me there?!” He gave Steve a hurt look.

“Dustin, it just happened.”

“Steve took us to the past,” El attempted to explain. “We were where his house is, but the house wasn’t there, just the woods and the rocks.”

“You can travel to the past?” Mike looked at his girlfriend.

She shook her head. “Only with him.” El pointed at Steve.

“Steve can travel to the past?” Lucas was confused.

“I know, it’s a lot,” Will commented.

“And there was another person there,” El continued. “I think he was a ghost.”

“You saw another ghost?!” Dustin punched Steve in the shoulder. He didn’t know what else to do.

“Ow! I don’t know what I saw, Dustin!”

“A high-level cleric joins your party,” Lucas remarked.

Mike scoffed. “No way is Steve a high-level cleric.”

“Sometimes necromancy just happens, no matter the character,” Will pointed out.

“That’s true,” Lucas surmised.

Steve didn’t know what they were referring to, but he was pretty sure they were making fun of him. “Stop insulting me in nerd.”

“Steve, why don’t you tell us what you saw?” Joyce offered.

Steve sighed. “Yeah, I saw the house that used to be there before my dad built where we live now. And I think I saw the houses that were even older than that.” He took a breath. “And I saw a guy, and I think he was dead, but I don’t know. It all happened so fast.”

“Even though you got stuck for an hour,” El added. “Time is weird in the Between Space.”

“You got sutck?!” Dustin punched him in the arm again.

“What do you mean stuck?” Nancy asked.

“I let go of Steve’s hand, and he didn’t come back with me,” El revealed. “I had to go back in and get him.”

“It was pretty scary,” Jonathan confessed.

Dustin looked at El. “You almost broke Steve?! That’s like the second rule of our constitution, don’t break Steve. I almost died saving him last year. I fell through a glass window for him!”

“Dude, calm down.” Mike put his arm around El’s shoulder, trying to comfort her.

“Take a breath, mama bear.” Robin placed a hand on Dustin’s shoulder.

Steve stood. He really wanted to bolt out of the room, but he couldn’t do that. There was no running from this. “I don’t know how to explain it, okay? It happened. So, there.”

“Steve’s a necromancer now, why not?” Lucas shrugged and took a bite of his biscuit.

“I’m not a necro – whatever,” Steve protested.

Dustin’s eyes got wide and he looked up at his friend. “No, but I think you’re a medium.”

“A what?”

“Someone who can communicate with the spirits of the dead,” Dustin elaborated. “Madame Z said you probably had some untapped potential.”

Steve gave a rueful laugh. “That’s the story of my life.”

“She said you might start to see things you couldn’t explain, feel things,” Dustin continued. “We should go and talk to her.”

“NO!” was the resounding reply from the room.

“We are never talking to that woman again,” Nancy enforced.

“Pretty sure that’s like rule three in our constitution, Dustin,” Jonathan reminded him.

“But she could help Steve understand what’s going on,” Dustin argued. “I say we put it up to debate, three fourths vote, let’s do it.”

“She’ll help herself to Steve’s money,” Robin pointed out.

“I’m really glad I was in a medically induced comma for a while last year,” Steve mumbled. 

Joyce reached out and touched Dustin’s arm. “We’re not involving Madame Z in anything, Dustin. We can figure this out another way.”

The boy tossed his arms up in the air. “Once again, I’m the only one with Steve’s best interest at heart.” He sat down on his case of Junior Mints with a pointed umph.

“Maybe Steve can go back into the Between Space and see what happens . . .” Lucas started.

“No!” Steve was quick to shut that down. It was obvious he was afraid, no matter how much he was trying to play the emotion off as something else. “We’re not doing that.”

Dustin had another idea. “The guy you saw at your house, the potentially dead guy, what time period would you say he was from?”

“I don’t know.” Steve thought for a second. “1800s?”

Dustin needed more info than that. “Early, middle, late?”

“I don’t know, Dustin, later?”

“We can figure this out, we just need to make a phone call.” Dustin stood with a smile and walked out to the front. “Robin, may I use your phone?”

“Sure.” 

Dustin pulled a piece of paper from his fanny pack and began to dial the number written on it. “Bernice,” he spoke into the phone a moment later, “how are you this fine morning? I need a little help with some information. Meet you at the library in twenty minutes? We’ll be there.” The boy looked back at the group with a toothy grin.

“He keeps Bernice’s number in his fanny pack?” Steve wondered aloud. He hadn’t seen or spoken to the cantankerous tour guide from Mooregrove Manor in several months.

“I think he has a rolodex of anyone who might be able to help you,” Robin whispered to him. 

Steve didn’t know how he felt about that. He felt guilty and a little ashamed but also sort of loved. It was a weird cocktail. 

“We’re not supposed to use the phone for personal calls,” Tad told Robin. He’d been eyeing Dustin the entire time. 

“Focus group,” Robin reminded her employee with force.

Dustin walked back over to Steve. “Where do we go when we need to figure anything out?”

“It used to be the AV room,” Will lamented.

“The genealogy section of the library,” Dustin answered.

Soon enough the group, minus Robin (who had to stay at work) and Joyce (who had a rental property to visit), were in the basement of the library with Bernice and all the old, family records the county had to offer. “It’s been a while since you children have come around.” Bernice sounded like she had genuinely missed them.

“It was the school year,” Dustin explained. “We’ll be around more now that it’s summer,” he assured her.

“Dude!” Lucas whispered and smacked him on the arm when Bernice turned around. "Don't tell her that."

“You, uh, giving tours at Mooregrove Manor again, Bernice?” Steve hesitantly asked.

“Oh, yes. We have all sorts of crowds now that we’re open again. Everyone loves hearing about Lillian.”

That made Steve feel all warm inside, and he smiled. Nancy nudged him with a smile of her own.

“What address were you looking for info on again?” Bernice asked.

“240 East Locust,” Dustin supplied.

“Anything particular you’re looking for?” Bernice wanted to know.

“Anyone drop dead on that spot, or in the vicinity?” Lucas added.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Bernice perked up as she shuffled back to the file cabinets. “That’s a different drawer.”

“She has a death drawer?” Mike whispered to the group.

“Watch it, or she’ll put you in it,” Max told him.

“Dustin, this is a long shot.” Steve looked at his young friend. 

“Trust Bernice,” Dustin assured him.

Sure enough, the older lady returned with a file in hand. “This letter is from Sarah Ludlow. It was printed in the paper a few years ago. I always clip the interesting stuff.”

“Ludlow?” Steve’s eyes lit up in recognition. “My parents bought our land from the Ludlows.”

“In the letter, Sarah wrote about her family’s house. The house and land belonged to her grandmother. It was left to her grandmother after her father died tragically when he was building a barn or something.” Bernice showed them the clipping. 

“Did – he, uh, fall off a ladder and break his neck?” Steve asked, his voice bowstring tight.

Several sets of eyes scanned the paper. “Grandma was only four when her dad fell off a ladder while building the family’s barn,” Nancy read. They all looked at him, and Steve wished they would look anywhere else. 

“Here’s a picture of the house.” Bernice pulled another clipping out of the file.

“Is that the house we were in?” El looked from the picture to Steve. 

Steve didn’t want to look, but he had to. His breath caught in his throat. “Yeah, that’s the house my parents tore down.”

“Sarah’s great uncle finished the original house, and her grandmother added to it over time, made it quite a grand lady. Shame it was torn down,” Bernice bemoaned.

It was real. Somehow, it was all real. Steve’s head was spinning. “Okay.” He ran his hands over his pants, trying to stop them from shaking.

“Steve, breathe,” Nancy reminded him.

“Okay,” he said again, not sure what else to say. “I’m going outside. To have a panic attack, or hyperventilate, or something.” Steve nodded and hurried up the stairs.

“Steve!” Dustin was hot on his friend’s trail.

“We better check on that.” Nancy looked at Jonathan, and they hurried up the stairs, too.

“Is he all right?” Bernice asked.

“Oh, yeah, he’s fine,” Max assured. “Thanks, Bernice, for coming out on a Saturday.”

“Well, I’m always happy to share our rich history with the future generations,” the older woman imparted. “I’ll see you all around more, right?”

Max gave a nervous smile. “Sure,” she replied.

“Good, you all can help me rearrange these stacks. They desperately need it.” Bernice indicated the cluttered shelves behind her.

“We’ll be back next week,” Max added. “Take care.” She turned quickly and headed for the stairs.

“See you then,” Bernice called after the departing group.

“You’ll be camping next week,” Mike hissed in her ear as they ascended the stairs.

“More fun for you all,” Max shot back at him.

Outside the library, Steve was pacing. Nancy was keeping Dustin at a distance to give the older boy some space for a moment. “Oh, good, we haven’t missed Steve’s breakdown,” Mike commented. Nancy shot him a death glare.

“What do we do now?” Max asked. She looked at El for answers, but the girl had none.

“I don’t know.”

Dustin turned to El, too. “You have powers. How do we help him?”

“I always knew I had them. I don’t know what it’s like to discover them,” El explained. She wished she could help, she really did. She didn’t like feeling helpless.

Steve stopped pacing and took a breath. He could feel all their eyes on him still, watching his every move. What did they expect him to do? What was he supposed to do? Steve took another breath and decided. If they wanted to follow him, he knew where he was going to take them. “Come on.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and started walking.

“Where are you going?” Dustin asked.

“I said, come on.” Steve didn’t stop, and they all started to follow him, like he knew they would.

“It should really be acknowledged that Steve has lost it,” Mike spoke as they continued to walk, and Nancy gave him another death glare.

“No, really, where are we going?” Will asked at some point, but Steve didn’t reply. He didn’t even look at them. He was focused on what was ahead, whatever that was.

Finally, they came to a stop outside the park near the community college. It was a nice day, and there was a fair amount of kids playing. Steve took a step closer and scanned the playground equipment. He was looking for a particular kid, a boy in a red shirt and high-waist pants. 

“Are you looking for someone?” Nancy hazarded to ask.

Steve didn’t answer, he just kept looking. And then there the boy was, swinging from the monkey bars. It was perfect because there wasn’t another kid near him at the moment. “There, that kid right there on the monkey bars.” Steve pointed.

His sudden announcement startled them all. “What kid on the monkey bars?” Nancy asked, her voice even less steady than before.

Steve felt his heart sink. “You don’t see him? Red shirt, brown pants, slicked back hair?”

Nancy chose her words carefully. “I see lots of kids.”

“But you don’t see that kid?” Steve tore his eyes away from the park and gave El a desperate look. “Do you see him?”

Eleven wanted so very badly to say yes, but she didn’t see anyone meeting that description. “Where is he?”

Steve looked back at the park, and the kid was at the fence now, and he was waving at them, or maybe he was just waving at Steve. What little color he had left drained from Steve’s face. “He’s waving at us.”

“I don’t see him.” El’s voice was small.

“Who is he, Steve?” Dustin asked.

Steve hunched over, like he wanted to puke. “His name is Percy Oliver, and he was hit by a car in 1955, right outside the park. He’s a . . .”

“Ghost,” Will finished for him. Steve made an odd noise in the back of his throat and hung his head even lower.

“How long have you seen this kid?” Dustin wanted to know.

“Since the Spring, I don’t know. I thought he was a regular kid. He’s always waving at me.” Steve raised his hand weakly. 

“How come you can’t see him?” Mike asked El. “You saw the other guy, and Lillian.”

“I saw them in the Between Space, but never out here,” El reasoned.

“That’s because you’re not a medium,” Dustin concluded. “But Steve . . .”

“Nope!” Steve straightened up with his sudden proclamation. “Nope!” He ignored Percy, who was still waving at him, and started to walk the other way. This time he didn’t know where he was going, but he was going somewhere. Could he keep walking until everything changed back to the way it used to be? Could he walk back to a time before Lillian, before Mooregrove Manor, before Demogorgons, and Russian conspiracies? He was willing to try.

“Steve, where are you going?!” Dustin called out to him, but his voice sounded much further away.

Then Steve was running, running as fast and as far as he could. This had to help, right? He kept running, the campus stretching out before him. At one point he looked back, and Dustin was the only one still trying to keep up with him. The others were scattered and following at various paces. Dustin sounded like he was short of breath, and Steve felt guilty. The kid had asthma. He shouldn’t be chasing Steve.

The older boy slowed up and came to a stop by the weathered, concrete chess boards that dotted the back end of the quad. No one really used them. Steve didn’t know why the college had ever put them in, but they’d been there long before he had a say as to what his tuition dollars were spent on. He occasionally saw some of the local retirees using them, or the members of the chess club. To his surprise, two Bobby Fisher wannabes were braving the summer sun to play a game. Another table had a lone man sitting at it, like he was waiting for a partner to arrive and play with him. 

Steve took a breath and stretched out his legs. “You all right there, son?” the man asked him.

“Yeah, rough day,” Steve explained. The man nodded and looked back at the empty chess board like he was contemplating a move with an invisible opponent.

“Thank God you stopped,” Dustin gasped as he caught up to Steve. He fished his inhaler out of his fanny pack and took a puff.

“I didn’t want to kill you.”

“Thanks.” Dustin took another puff. He was about to plop down on the stone bench where the old man was sitting.

“Whoa, Dustin, there’s a person there.”

“No there’s not.” Dustin took a ragged breath and collapsed on the bench.

Steve’s mind had finally had all it could handle. He started to laugh, and it wasn’t the good kind of laugh. It was high pitched and maniacal sounding. “Of course, there’s not an old man sitting there!”

Dustin’s eyes got wide. “You see an old man?!” He jumped up and moved away from the bench.

Steve kept laughing. “There’s a ghost right there. Why wouldn’t there be?! They’re everywhere!” he shouted. “They’re everywhere!”

The younger group playing chess decided to cut their losses and leave. They packed up their pieces quickly and hightailed it out of there.

“Steve, you need to calm down,” Dustin advised. But his friend wasn’t listening to him. He was still laughing so hard it almost sounded like he was crying. 

Steve made eye contact with the ghost, and the old man look super concerned for him. And for some reason, that shut Steve up. His laughter stopped and he went silent. Not knowing what else to do, he sat down on the grass, his eyes staring out straight ahead.

“Uh, Steve?” Dustin didn’t how to handle this. Fortunately, the rest of the group had caught up with them.

“What’s going on?” Nancy asked.

“I don’t know. He just sat down.”

“Steve?” Jonathan walked up and ran his hand in front of Steve’s face. He barely blinked. “This can’t be good.”

“I think his brain short circuited when he saw the other ghost,” Dustin explained.

“What other ghost?” Nancy looked around.

“The one sitting on that bench.” Dustin pointed in front of them.

“We walked all the way up here and he’s sitting down?” Mike complained as he joined them. He made to sit down on the old man’s bench.

“Don’t!” Dustin, Nancy, and Jonathan shouted.

“That’s a ghost bench,” Dustin added.

Mike reeled back and hid behind the nearest person, who just happened to be Max. “What’s going on?” she wanted to know.

“Ghost bench,” Mike replied.

“No way.” Lucas stepped up and ran his hands through the air around the bench. “I don’t feel anything. Shouldn’t it be colder or something? It was colder with Lillian, right?”

The old man gave Steve an amused look. “Common misconception, thinking all departed spirits are the same.”

“Can you see anything?” Max asked El. The girl shook her head. She saw what they all saw. It was oddly comforting for once to be a part of the other group.

“You travel with quite a pack,” the old man told Steve. 

Steve’s upper lip curled in the hint of a smile, but he was still in a state of shock.

“Jonathan, go get the car,” Nancy instructed. They couldn’t stay out in the open all day. They needed to get Steve back to a place he felt more secure. Although, Nancy wasn’t entirely sure where that was now.

“Yeah,” Jonathan sighed and started to head back. They’d left the car at the library.

“I’ll go with you.” Will peeled away from the group and headed off with his brother. He didn’t really want to stay there with the ghost bench anyhow.

“You play chess?” the old man asked Steve.

“No,” Steve replied in a quiet voice. He didn’t know why he was talking to the ghost, but it seemed rude not to respond. 

“No what?” Dustin looked back at his friend.

Nancy followed Steve’s line of sight. “I don’t think he’s talking to us, Dustin.”

“Oh.” Dustin made a face. “Oh, no.”

“Well, this is sufficiently creepy,” Lucas surmised.

Max looked at her watch. “We need to get going, El. Dad wants to hit the road by 4:00, and our bikes are back at the library.”

“We have to walk all the way back,” Lucas moaned, realizing for the first time how far they’d come.

“Okay,” El replied with reluctance.

“If you go back, we’re going, too. I’m spending every moment I can with my girlfriend before you take her away from me,” Mike told Max.

El ignored them both and slowly approached Steve. She crouched down in front of him. He halfway turned his head to look at her. “I’ll be back in a week. Don’t get lost,” she told him. “Or possessed.”

“Okay,” he whispered.

El touched his arm in encouragement and pulled away. She took Mike’s hand when he offered it to her, and the four of them started to walk back across the campus. “Sorry, Dustin,” Max offered as they moved away.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine,” Dustin replied, but that was false bravado and they all knew it. Dustin knelt in front of his friend. “We’ve got this, right, Steve?”

Steve was staring at the bench again and Dustin sighed.

An hour later, they were back at Family Video. Dustin led a mostly catatonic Steve into the store. The place was crowded now, with several people milling about the shelves and a substantial line at the front counter. Robin looked up from the customer she was helping. “What happened?” she asked the group.

“Lots of things,” Dustin replied. It was super vague, but he didn’t want to spill the beans in front of all these strangers.

“Tad, take over,” Robin instructed as she left the counter. 

Tad looked sick as he surveyed the size of the line. “What?”

“I said take over,” Robin repeated. “I need a minute.” She took Steve’s hand in her own, but he was still staring straight ahead through her. “Seriously, what happened?” she whispered to Nancy.

“He may have seen a ghost or two,” she whispered back in response.

“Did you all see them?”

“I think you can figure that one out,” Dustin quipped.

“How long has he been like this?” Robin waved her hand in front of Steve’s face, trying to get a reaction.

“Yeah, I tried that already,” Jonathan commented.

“He’s in shock,” Will supplied. “It’s like when a superhero discovers their powers for the first time”

“I don’t want these powers,” Steve spoke at last. He was still staring straight ahead, but at least he was listening to them.

“You don’t get to choose your powers, Steve,” Will continued. “Spiderman didn’t ask to get bitten by a radioactive spider, but he made the best of it.”

“Batman chose his powers,” Dustin interjected.

Will rolled his eyes. They’d clearly been down this road before. “Batman’s not a superhero. He’s a rich guy with cool toys.”

“He is so a superhero,” Dustin argued.

“All right, dweebs, shut up.” Robin waved her hand to silence them. “Give me and Steve a minute.” She took Steve by the hand and led him to the back.

“What are we supposed to do?” Dustin wanted to know.

“Rent a movie,” she replied as she closed the door to the back room. 

Robin grabbed the nearest box of Junior Mints and shoved them into Steve’s chest. “What’s this for?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s all I’ve got right now.”

“Okay,” Steve conceded. He opened the box and slowly started to eat the chocolatey candy inside.

“Did you really see ghosts?” she asked after a moment.

“Yeah, two of them. The kid at the park and an old man at the chess tables on campus.” Steve was surprised about how matter of fact he was about it. He must be in shock.

Robin’s eyes got big. “No way!” 

“The old man spoke to me. He seemed nice,” Steve decided as he ate another mint.

Robin shivered. “That’s creepy.”

“How do you think I feel?!” Steve felt a flash of anger. Maybe his numbness was wearing off? “I didn’t ask for this power!”

“It’s not a power, Steve,” Robin countered. “It’s a gift, or an ability, or something.”

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it!” Steve persisted.

Robin nodded and gave him a second to calm down. “I know you don’t, but it’s a part of you now.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?” his voice sounded more broken than he wanted it to.

Robin didn’t have an answer. All she had were Junior Mints. She tossed another box at him. He caught it with his free hand. “Have more Junior Mints.”

“Junior Mints can’t fix everything.”

“No, but it’s better than nothing,” Robin surmised. She smiled at him, and despite how he felt inside, Steve smiled in return. “We can figure this out,” she assured him. “I mean, it could be worse. There could be Russians crawling all over the place, or inter-dimensional monsters.”

“Yeah.” He had to agree with her.

“What’s a few dead people?”

Steve laughed and she laughed with him. “I miss being normal,” he told her.

Robin took a breath and placed her hand on his arm. “That ship’s sailed, dingus.”


	6. Road Tripping with Psychics

Steve stood at the window in his kitchen. It was a sunny morning, and from where he was standing, he had a perfect view of those rocks at the back of the yard, right along the wood line. He barely breathed as he stared intently, just daring that guy, ghost, spirit, whatever it was, to appear. The house around him was eerily silent. He’d gone from a full house to near solitude in a matter of hours. El was off on her camping trip with Max. Joyce and the rest of the Byers clan had packed it up again and moved into their new rental house, which was finally ready for them. Steve’s parents were still off on their marriage retreat. If he didn’t know any better, Steve would have thought life was back to normal and he was alone again, naturally. But life was anything but normal. Was a medium ever truly alone? Steve didn’t want to think about that.

He should really move away from the window and find something else to do with his time. This couldn’t be healthy, just standing there, on pins and needles, waiting for a ghost to appear. He really needed to get a hobby. The wind blew through the trees, and he clenched the handle of his mug a little tighter, his eyes searching. Any second now, that ghost would be there, he just knew it. 

“Good morning!” Dustin announced as he entered the kitchen.

Steve screamed and dropped his mug. It clattered on the linoleum, the handle breaking off and the coffee spilling everywhere. Also, Steve wasn’t alone because Dustin was crashing with him for the week before he went off to camp. Steve had momentarily forgotten he still had a living house guest staying with him. 

“Shit, dude, are you okay?” Dustin asked.

“Yeah, just, stay over there. Let me clean this up.” Steve grumbled as he found the paper towels and pulled off a handful. He picked up the pieces of the mug and set them on the counter. “What are you doing up so early?”

“I thought we were having breakfast.” Dustin looked at the empty table.

“Why . . .” Steve’s question died in his throat as he remembered that yeah, he had promised the kid breakfast last night. Steve couldn’t cook much, but he did make a mean pancake. “Sorry.”

“No biggie.” Dustin shrugged. “We’ve got all week.” The boy moved around the kitchen slowly, looking out the window that Steve had been so transfixed with. “What were you looking at?”

“Just lost in my head.” Steve finished cleaning up the mess and threw the paper towels away.

“Okay.” Dustin went fishing in the cabinets. He found a box of Rice Krispies that would have to do. “You, uh, want to talk about it?” he tentatively asked. Steve had been super mum on the whole medium thing since they’d made the discovery.

“Nothing to talk about,” Steve deflected. He opened the fridge and started to hand Dustin the milk. There was barely anything left in the carton, not enough for a bowl of cereal. “Ah, shit. I forgot to go shopping after the Byers left. Sorry, Dustin.”

“It’s okay, we can go shopping today, stock up,” Dustin assured. 

Steve didn’t know if he was more frustrated with himself or with Dustin’s patience with his ineptitude. Steve turned to the sink to dump the drabs that were left in the milk carton. The wind blew through the trees once more and his eyes caught a glimpse of white, like a shirt, and he started again, dropping the carton in the sink.

“Okay, we’re not doing this,” Dustin decided. Apparently, his patience had reached its end. “We’re taking a little trip on the way to the store.”

“To where?” Steve ran his hand through his hair and turned away from the window.

“To see Madame Z.”

“Dustin, no. That’s a big no.”

“She can help you,” Dustin insisted. “Yeah, she’s a thief and a swindler, but she’s also a medium. I’ve seen what she can do, Steve. She’ll know what you’re going through.”

“She almost got us all killed,” Steve protested.

“Who hasn’t?” Dustin threw his arms up in the air. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”

“The group said no,” Steve enforced. “We don’t have their approval.”

“The constitution is more like guidelines,” Dustin started, but Steve shut him down.

“No. Stop right there.”

Dustin took a breath and tried a different approach. “I can’t watch you do this.”

“Do what?”

“Be terrified of your life, that’s not the Steve I know. You’re the guy who rushes into danger with a bat full of nails. You take on monsters and Russian scientists.”

“And get the shit beaten out of me for my troubles.” Steve pointed at one of the faded, silvery scars on his forehead as further proof.

Dustin took another breath. “I can’t go to math camp and leave you like this. I’ll be worried about you the entire time, and I won’t enjoy camp. This is my last summer for this camp, and I was going to roll in there and tell Susie what a mistake she made by dumping me and tell her how awesome my life is without her, but now I won’t be able to because I’ll be worried about you. You’re going to ruin math camp for me.”

“Dustin . . .”

The boy wasn’t finished. “So I’m going to bug you, every moment of every day that I’m here until we go and see Madame Z. You’ll have to do it, or you’ll have to kill me to shut me up. And if you kill me, I’ll haunt your ass and keep saying the same thing. What’s it going to be, Steve?” Dustin folded his arms across his chest.

Steve scowled as he contemplated his options. He really didn’t want to go and see Madame Z. He would have been perfectly happy to live his entire life without meeting her. But he also didn’t want to live his life like this, being afraid of every gust of wind. And seeing as she was the only other medium he knew of in Hawkins, or anywhere for that matter . . .

“Fine,” his reply was anything but excited.

“Really?” Dustin on the other hand was thrilled.

“Yeah, but I take the lead, you understand?” Steve pointed a commanding finger at Dustin. He felt like his father. This was a monumentally bad idea, and he knew it. But maybe if he could control it this time, there wouldn’t be any collateral damage?

“Dude, of course,” Dustin assured. “Let’s go!” He turned and practically ran for the door.

“Right now?” Steve looked down at his clothes. He hadn’t put any thought into his appearance, but he supposed he was presentable enough, all things considered. Old Steve would have insisted on a well thought out wardrobe change and at least thirty minutes of hair care. The fact that this wasn’t even a concern for him was probably a sign as to how much unlike himself he was really feeling. Dustin was still in his pajama pants, but the boy didn’t seem bothered by this fact. His hat was on his head. He was sliding his shoes on as Steve stared at him. He was ready to go.

“Yeah, you can buy me breakfast on the way. We’ll go to the store later. We’ll make a day of it.” 

Now Steve was frustrated with Dustin’s exuberance. “You can calm down about it,” he growled as he ushered the younger boy out the door and locked up behind them.

“Answers and food will make us all feel better and less grumpy,” Dustin insisted, and Steve gave him a death glare.

As they approached the car, Dustin stopped short. “You know what would make this day even better?” He indicated the car.

Steve knew what the boy was hinting at. And yeah, he had promised Dustin he’d help him learn how to drive, but now was not the time. “No.”

Dustin refused to be crestfallen. “Oh, come on. We only have a week, and we’ve got a lot to do, we’re going to need to multitask.”

Steve took a breath. “Fine, we’ll find an empty parking lot somewhere.”

Dustin was disappointed with that remark. “Parking lots? My mom’s had me driving around parking lots for weeks, Steve, weeks. I’m ready for the open road. That’s why I came to you.”

Steve looked from his car to Dustin. He knew his BMW was another way his parents had tried to buy his love instead of actually being there for him, but it was a damn nice car, and he was very attached to it. “I promise I’m ready, and I’ll be so careful,” Dustin pleaded. “I can drive to McDonald’s, I swear, and I can drive downtown. I’ll go the speed limit, or under.”

Steve took another breath as he felt himself handing over his keys. “If you so much as scratch my car, I will end you.

“Understood, 100 percent.” 

Steve deposited his keys in the boy’s eager hands. Dustin’s toothy grin was the widest he’d seen it in some time. “Don’t make me regret this, any of it.”

Surprisingly, Dustin was ready. He got them to McDonald’s safely, and he got them downtown. Steve had only had two, minor freak outs. He was pleasantly surprised, but still apprehensive. At the moment, he felt a third potential freak out coming on as Dustin slowly drove down Main Street, searching for a place to park.

“Just pick a space, any space,” Steve commented.

Dustin passed the more traditional spaces and braked near an open parallel parking space. “Oh, you can teach me how to parallel park.”

Steve gave him a look. “There’s a lot going on today, Dustin. We’re not doing that.”

“Fine,” Dustin huffed. The car behind them honked its horn. “Give me a minute!” Dustin rolled his eyes. “Some people.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to adulthood,” Steve observed, “just one annoyance after another.”

Dustin safely parked the car in the lot of a bank that was closed for the day. He looked over at Steve. “Were you referring to me?”

“That remains to be seen. Let’s go and meet this Madame Z.”

A few minutes later, they were standing outside the battered door in the less than savory alley. “Madame Z’s Emporium of Mystery,” Steve read the faded, green letters. 

Dustin sighed as he stepped forward and pulled the eviction notice off the door. “Of course.” There was a new lock on the door, too, and he hadn’t brought his bolt cutters. He couldn’t call Nancy and ask to borrow hers, either, because then she’d know what they were doing.

“You came to this place for help? This explains so much,” Steve remarked.

“You don’t get to pass judgement on this anymore,” Dustin protested. “That was months ago. The window for judgement has closed.”

“You all looking for that wacko?” the girl from the hair salon asked as she looked around the corner.

Dustin recognized her from their adventures last year. “Oh, hey, how are you?”

She shrugged. “Haven’t had anything stolen since she got evicted.”

“Do you know if she’s still around, or . . .?”

The girl took a long drag on her cigarette. “I heard she’s over at the long stay hotel by the interstate.”

“Thank you so much.”

“I’d put my valuables in my socks, if I were you,” the girl advised.

Steve insisted on driving them to the hotel. It was even less savory than the alley. The guy at the front desk was more than willing to tell them what room Madame Z was in, so long as they left him alone to keep watching his westerns. “Room 115, this is it,” Dustin spoke as they stood in front of the door. 

“This just gets better and better,” Steve commented. “How do you know she’ll even open the door?”

“Because I have something she wants.” Dustin gave Steve a large smile. That did not make the older boy feel better about any of this. “Here goes nothing.” Dustin knocked on the door and waited.

“Who is it?” a surly voice inside wanted to know. Dustin knew that voice well.

“Madame Z, it’s Dustin Henderson. You might remember me from last year?”

“Piss off!”

Dustin gave Steve another smile. “She remembers me.” He turned his attention back to the door. “Madame Z, I have someone I’d like you to meet. I’ve got my friend Steve with me.”

In an instant, the locks were thrown off and the door was yanked open. The woman before them was dressed in a black mumu with a flashy, purple scarf wrapped around her head. She ignored Dustin and went straight for Steve. He instinctively took a step back. “Oh, look at you. I knew it. Damnit. With your hair and your face and your youth, you’ll get all the business for sure.” She reached for Steve’s face, but stopped short from actually grabbing it. “We can go in on this together, you know?”

“Go into what?” Steve was confused, and he was beyond ready to bolt.

“Wait, you know he’s a medium?” Dustin had caught on.

“Of course, it’s rolling off him like cheap cologne, and his fear.” Madame Z leaned back; suddenly aware she’d been coming on a little strong.

“You can tell?” Steve gave his armpits a slight sniff, trying to see if he smelled any different.

“See, I told you she could help us,” Dustin insisted.

“I can help you, yes.” Madame Z pointed at Steve. “I’m not so interested in you.” She flicked her hand at Dustin.

He didn’t seem bothered by it. “I’ve missed our back and forth, Madame Z.”

“I’m not sure I want or need your help.” Steve folded his arms across his chest, trying to create a boundary between himself and the odd woman.

Madame Z laughed. “Oh, sweet thing, you need my help. You’re an inexperienced medium with considerable power. You’re a week away from an extended stay at the nearest psychiatric hospital.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Steve wanted to know. Madame Z narrowed her eyes as she continued to observe him.

“How do you know how powerful he is?” Dustin wanted answers.

Madame Z was silent for a moment. “Come in, but don’t touch anything.” She turned and stepped back into the room. Steve’s eyes begged Dustin not to, but of course the kid went in with her. Now Steve had no choice but to follow. 

The room inside was cluttered with boxes upon boxes. It smelled like a cigarette factory and Dustin fished his inhaler out and took a puff. Madame Z was digging through a couple of the boxes, searching for something. “I can’t wait to get out of this hotel room, have all my stuff in one place again,” she griped.

“Yeah, so what are your plans now that you’ve been evicted?” Dustin casually asked.

“Ha, here were go!” Madame Z announced. She pointedly ignored Dustin’s question as she pulled two items out of the box. One was a worn boot and the other was a one-eyed toy rabbit. “Here, take this and tell me everything you know about it.” She held the boot out to Steve.

He made a face as he observed the shoe. “I’m not touching that.”

“What, you scared of a little boot?” Madame Z taunted.

Steve pursed his lips. “Fine.” He snatched the boot away from her. Suddenly, his mind was filled with images that weren’t his own. It was like he was seeing flashes from someone else’s life. “Reed Baker, died March 30, 1949, after a rattlesnake bit him in the leg right above his boot.” The information and words were there like Steve had know this information his entire life. In his mind, he saw the snake strike, and he tossed the boot, flinging it on the bed. As soon as it was out of his hands, the images were gone.   
“What was that?!” Steve looked at his hands, trying to find an explanation.

Madame Z didn’t answer him. She thrust the stuffed rabbit in his hands before he had a chance to recover. The images were back, but they were completely different this time, like someone had changed the movie playing in Steve’s head. “Harriet Long, died September 12, 1901, from tuberculosis.” He could see the sick child cuddling the rabbit in his mind. He saw when she breathed her last breath, and it made him start to cry.

“Steve, are you okay?” Dustin took a step closer. “Whatever you’re doing, stop it,” he told Madame Z.

“I’m not doing anything, he is.” She took the rabbit away and returned it to its box. 

Steve took a deep breath as his mind cleared. He wiped at his eyes, ashamed he’d been crying. “Are you okay?” Dustin asked again.

“Yeah.” He wiped at his eyes some more and gave Madame Z an accusatory look.

“What was that? How’d he know all that stuff?” Dustin turned on the other medium.

Once again, she chose to ignore the younger boy. “Steve, you are a wealth of untapped potential. I haven’t met another medium like you in a long time.”

“That’s great, but I don’t want these powers.”

“Too late for that, Pandora, you already opened the box,” Madame Z quipped.

Steve pointed to the boot on the bed. “What was I seeing, when I touched that stuff?”

“The lives attached to those objects. Tragic deaths tend to imprint on certain belongings.” She recovered the boot from the bed and returned it to the box.

“Do you see it, when you touch that stuff, the images?”

“Oh yeah, but I don’t let it bother me like you did. You’re too emotionally invested, it’s a common mistake for new mediums, and it will drive you insane, or get you killed,” she warned. “I can help you learn to control it, though.”

“I have worked too hard to keep you alive.” Dustin gave Steve a pleading look.

“How would you teach me?” Steve hesitated to ask.

Madame Z smiled and leaned back against her boxes. “Seeing as I’m on my way out of town, the lessons will have to be rather truncated. We’ll need to spend a lot of time together these next few days. And there is the matter of my fee.”

Steve scoffed. “No thanks.”

“Steve . . .” Dustin started to protest.

Madame Z shrugged. “Take it or leave it, but I’d be committed for life or dead if someone hadn’t taken the time to teach me.”

“Wait, you consider yourself well adjusted? Oh, no.” Now Dustin was super concerned. “Steve, please, you have to do this. You don’t want to end up like her.”

Steve grunted in frustration and turned back. “What’s your fee?”

“I need $200 up front so I can pay my bill here and get my car fixed. At the end of the week, you give me another $500 to cover the rest of my moving expenses. I have money coming in from another project, but it’s not quite enough. Also, you pay for all gas, food, and cigarettes while we’re traveling.”

“Traveling, where are we going?” Steve wanted to know.

“First we’re going to see my friend in Williamsport. He deals in special antiques.” Madame Z smiled at them. It was far from comforting. 

“Williamsport?! That’s three hours from here.”

“We better get going then.” She looked at her watch and they both wondered who she’d stolen it from. “But I will need that $200 up front.” The medium held out her hand expectantly.

Steve looked at the boy. “That’s $700, Dustin, not including her rider.”

“I know, she’s a pill, but she’s also the only person who knows what you’re going through.” Dustin took his friend’s hand. “And Steve, you don’t want this to be your life.” He gestured to the dank and crowded hotel room.

“Fine,” Steve capitulated. He pulled his wallet out and handed her the cash. At least he’d remembered to stop by the bank before Dustin came over. Of course, he hadn’t planned to spend his fun money with Dustin this way.

“Thank you.” Madame Z stuffed the money down the front of her mumu, and they both looked away. “Let’s hit the road, boys.”

“Road tripping with psychics!” Dustin announced.

“I’m not psychic,” Steve protested. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“You’re not,” Madame Z assured him. “That’s a different skill set. And I’m only psychic when there’s money to be gained from it.”


	7. Rod’s Roadside Antiquities and Homemade Pies

June 16, 1986

One stop for gas, cigarettes, and snacks later, they were on the open road to Williamsport. “I don’t see why I couldn’t drive, at least part of the way,” Dustin grumbled from the back seat. 

“Because you’re not ready for the Interstate,” Steve replied with a grumble of his own. “And don’t get chip crumbs all over my backseat again.”

“That was one time, and the bag slipped, I told you.” Dustin rubbed his greasy fingers on his pants and held the bag a little closer to his chest.

“You two are like brothers,” Madame Z observed as she took a drag on her cigarette.

“No relation,” they both replied and gave each other a look.

“I had five brothers, you can have any of them, if you’re so lonely . . .well, the two that are still alive.” She casually flicked ash out the open window.

“That blows. What happened to them?” Dustin asked.

“Vietnam, lost a wrestling match with a bear, and drunken fall down an elevator shaft. I never said they were the brightest.”

“Do – any of them come and visit you?” the boy wanted to know.

“No, thank God.” Madame Z looked out at the passing scenery for a moment before turning her attention to Steve. He didn’t like it when she stared at him like he was a juicy piece of meat.

“What are you staring at?”

“Did anyone in your family see anything? Make weird comments? Your mom, grandmother, strange aunt?” Madame Z was trying to figure him out.

“No,” Steve replied. And it was the truth, his family was as normal and white bred as it came. 

“Really? Huh.” Madame Z flicked her cigarette again as she thought. “Someone’s probably lying to you, or at least withholding information. Sensitivity like yours is usually passed down through the generations.”

“Like a recessive gene?” Dustin chimed in.

“A little different,” Madame Z retorted.

“Withholding information, that totally sounds like your family, Steve,” Dustin continued. He tipped his chip bag back making a concerted effort to get all the crumbs in his mouth.  
Madame Z’s eyes flashed in understanding. “Oh, poor little rich kid.” She reached over and pinched Steve’s arm, and he flinched.

“Stop it!”

“Makes so much sense now.” She smiled. “It’s probably been in your family for years, but that person was either pressed in to staying silent or locked up somewhere. Does your house have a disappointment's room?”

“A what?” Steve gave her a look.

“A weird, spare room where you can stick anything or anyone, you’re disappointed in,” Madame Z elaborated.

“No, our modern house does not have one of those.”

“Are those things real?” Dustin asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Madame Z looked back at the younger boy. “Your dad’s out of the picture, right?”

“Uh, yeah, took off right after I was born.” Dustin turned his attention to the floorboards, like he was double checking for crumbs. His absentee dad didn’t really bother him that much anymore, but it was still a sore topic of discussion with strangers, and people didn’t get much stranger than Madame Z. 

“And you’re filling that role.” She looked back at Steve. “Man, I am shocked you are both still alive after last year’s fiasco.”

“No thanks to you!” Steve pointed out.

“I apologized for that,” Madame Z defended. She fished out another cigarette and lit it.

“Really? I must have been sick that day,” Dustin remarked.

“I’m helping you now, aren’t I?”

“For a fee. We’re paying customers. It’s not like you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart,” Steve protested.

“Yeah,” Dustin seconded.

Madame Z pointed her cigarette at Steve. “Everything in life has a cost, kid, and you’ll learn that soon enough, if you haven’t already.”

Steve was pretty sure he knew that already.

“So, what happened to you, did someone in your family have your gift?” Dustin asked in an attempt to move the conversation forward. 

“My grandmother,” Madame Z willingly divulged. “When I was four, I had an imaginary friend named Evelyn, but she wasn’t imaginary. She was dead. My grandmother knew what Evelyn was. She taught me how to find the spirits, to know what they wanted.”

“What happened to Evelyn?” Dustin leaned forward, resting his arms and chin on the back of the front seat.

“She fell down a well on our property, broke her neck.”

“Were you able to help her?” Steve wanted to know. “Help her pass on?”

Madame Z thought about it for a minute. “I grew up and stopped playing with her, and then we moved.”

Steve looked wounded. “You just left her there?”

“First mistake, you can’t save them all. Second mistake, it’s not your job to save them. You can’t go back in time and cover the well or catch her before she falls in.” Madame Z took an annoyed drag on her cigarette.

“What did your grandmother teach you then?” Dustin inquired.

“That I wasn’t crazy. Thanks to her, I owned my abilities. When she died, I knew enough to reach out to other mediums and continue my training.”

“Is she the one who taught you to make money off it?” Steve shot her a look from the corner of his eyes.

Madame Z didn’t reply for a moment. When she did respond, it had nothing to do with the conversation. “It’s a long drive to Williamsport. Let’s find some music.” She reached to turn on the radio. 

“Steve doesn’t like it when people touch his radio,” Dustin informed her.

“No, music is good,” the older boy agreed.

Madame Z found a station that came in clearly. She smiled. “It’s so nice to be in a car with a working stereo. It’s been a minute.”

“Rod’s Roadside Antiquities and Homemade Pies,” Dustin read as they pulled into the dirty parking lot. “Oh, pies!”

“Peach is the best,” Madame Z imparted.

“Steve. . .” Dustin gave his friend a hopeful look.

Steve rolled his eyes. “We’ll see.”

“Yes, pie,” Dustin quietly celebrated as they all got out of the car.

The building before them had seen better days. Its porch was overflowing with random odds and ends. It looked like a perpetual garage sale from the 1950's gone wrong. Steve casually pushed one of the umpteen rocking chairs. “These are special antiques?” He gave Madame Z a look.

“He’s not going to keep the good stuff on the porch,” she protested.

Dustin yanked open an old ice box. The door made a terrible squeal. “Dustin, don’t touch anything,” Steve hissed. The teen raised his hands and shoved them in his pockets.

Madame Z opened the screen door and stepped into the main building. “This better be worth a six-hour drive,” Steve muttered as he followed her through.

Inside was even more cluttered than outside. It was somehow dustier, too. The smell inside the store was a cross between must and pie crust. A large counter sported an old cash register, a sign advertising the pies available that day, and a black sign with silver lettering encouraging people to “Ask About the Haunted Cupboard. Just 25 cents a gander.”

“Rod!” Madame Z called with something mirroring affection. An older gentleman looked up from the counter. He looked like his shop, dusty and worn. His faded green cap covered his balding head, and when he smiled, you cold tell he was missing a tooth or two.

“Zora, I wasn’t expecting you.” Rod grabbed his cane and hobbled out from around his counter.

“Zora?” Dustin whispered to Steve.

“I bet her real name’s Sally or Patty,” he whispered back.

Rod and Madame Z exchanged a hug. “What’d you bring me this time?” he asked.

“Today’s a little different, Rod. My new curiosity isn’t so much an object.” She looked at Steve and the older boy swallowed hard. “I picked up another medium, and I want to test him out on the stuff I’ve brought you.”

Rod considered Steve. He scratched his thin chin. “You know people pay me all day to see that stuff, Zora.” Steve looked around the store. There was no on else there, and there had been no other cars in the parking lot.

“I know, Rod, but now you can claim two mediums have cut their teeth on that stuff, and when Steve’s as big a name as I am, you’ll have even more clout.” Madame Z put her arm around Steve’s shoulders, and he flinched.

“What’s with the kid?” Rod pointed at Dustin.

“I’m his assistant.” Dustin was always quick with an answer.

“That’s a good act,” Rod agreed.

“Give us an hour, Rod,” Madame Z cajoled. “It probably won’t take that long.”

“Fine,” the old man caved. “I’ll keep people out of the back room for a while, unless someone pays me to see that cupboard.”

“Understood.”

The door to the store opened and an elderly tourist couple entered. “Oh, I hate it when we get busy,” Rod grumbled as he returned to the counter.

Madame Z took Steve by the arm and steered him further into the store. Dustin followed along behind. The store had an amazing amount of rooms. The air seemed to get thinner and hotter the further back they went. Finally, they came to a small room that was blocked off from the others with a black curtain. Madame Z pushed Steve through. The shelves inside were cluttered with random knick-knacks, like everything else. A separate curtain at the back of the room covered something large.

“What’s all this junk?” Dustin asked as he looked around. He spotted a shelf that contained copies of Madame Z’s book. A framed, signed picture of the medium set next to the books.

“Educational tools,” she explained. The medium noticed her book stack was dusty. With a frown, she wiped them off the sleeve of her mumu.

“Authentic, haunted items, vouched for by the Mysterious Medium, Madame Z,” Dustin read a faded, paper sign. “Are these items really haunted?”

“No,” Madame Z admitted. “Well, two of them are, but we’ll get to that later.” She looked at Steve. “What’s your favorite color?”

“What?”

“Rapid fire questions require a rapid-fire response. What’s your favorite color?”

“Uh, blue?”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you sure, because you didn’t sound sure.”

“Yes, blue.”

“What’s your name?”

“Steve Harrington.”

“How old are you?”

“20.”

“Give me those three answers again.”

“Blue, Steve Harrington, 20.”

Madame Z selected an item from one of the shelves. It was a small, porcelain pig. “These objects are a little harder, they weren’t physically touching a person when they died, but they were still valuable to someone who’s now deceased. So, an imprint of the person remains, however faint. I’m going to hand you a series of objects. You’ll hold it for 30 seconds and tell me everything you know about that person,” she instructed Steve. “I want rapid fire responses, just like you gave me. If you start to see images in your head, don’t focus on them. Focus on the facts. Detach. It should be as easy as blue, Steve Harrington, 20. Got it?”

“Yeah,” his response was less than convincing.

“Don’t be worried if you touch some of these and feel nothing. You’re a new medium, and this is a pretty advanced exercise,” Madame Z assured him. Steve nodded and accepted the porcelain pig as she handed it to him.

The images were back in his head, but they were fainter than the images he’d seen with the boot and the bunny. The information was there, though, and it took nothing at all for Steve to say the words. “Gertrude Montgomery, age 43, died in 1932, bought this pig in a glass shop in Chicago.”

“You got all that by touching this thing?” Dustin took the pig from him. “All I’ve got is it’s an ugly pig.”

Madame Z took the pig from Dustin and placed it back on the shelf. She selected a thimble next. “Pretty good,” she told Steve as she handed him the thimble. “This one’s a little harder.”

“Robert Mitchell, age 92, died in 1961, he worked in a textile factory.”

“Son of a bitch,” Madame Z huffed.

Thirty minutes later, they’d worked their way through almost every item on the shelves around them. Steve had had an answer for every one of them, much to Madame Z’s chagrin. “Oh, you’re going to put me out of business,” she muttered into her hand at one point.

“You doing okay?” Dustin checked on his friend.

“Despite the inherent weirdness of all this, I’m fine,” Steve replied. He was freaked out, sure, but it was becoming more manageable. 

“All right, I’m bringing out the big dogs. Wait here,” Madame Z instructed. She stepped out of the curtain for a moment.

“Do you think the pie is any good here?” Dustin wondered.

Steve made a face. “I don’t know if we should chance it.”

“But when will we ever be this way again?” Dustin reasoned. 

“Hopefully never.”

Madame Z returned with a small chalkboard and a piece of chalk. She cleared a space on the shelf for the chalkboard and handed the chalk to Steve. “What’s this?”

“You’re going to need it,” she assured him. Madame Z grabbed a lady’s glove from another shelf and put it on. She reached up high to the very top shelf and pulled down an old, back revolver. 

“Is that thing loaded?” Steve wanted to know. She opened the chamber to show him how empty it was before clicking it back in place.

“Put that chalk on the board and be ready to write, trust me,” Madame Z instructed. Steve took a breath and did as told. He took the gun from her between two of his fingers, making sure to keep it pointed down and not at any person, especially Dustin.

Steve’s mind was instantly flooded with one image. He could see a cold floor covered in blood, it felt like his blood. He could see the gun out in front of him, just out of reach. The space around him looked like a bank. He could see the cashier windows with the bars. In his stomach, he felt a deep sense of betrayal. He wanted to scream out, but his throat wouldn’t work, like it was filling with blood. With a shaky, blood covered hand, he reached out and began to write on the floor.

“I know what you did. Sons of bitches, I’ll kill you all.”

Madame Z took the gun from him and the image was instantly gone. Steve was still mad, though, and he had to swallow more than once to drive the coppery taste out of his mouth. He wanted to smash everything around him, but he didn’t know why. Steve looked at his hands, and they were shaking. 

“Take a breath,” Madame Z told him. “Take another.”

“Are you okay?” Dustin hazarded to ask.

Steve couldn’t answer him. He looked down at the chalkboard to see what he’d written. It was the same message he’d seen scrawled on the floor in blood. 

“This is an object I’d qualify as genuinely haunted,” Madame Z explained, holding up the gun in her gloved hand. “You have to watch out for these objects that have a lot of emotion attached to them, especially anger. Love can be tricky, too, but anger’s the worst. An object like this will drive you mad if you don’t know what you’re dealing with.” Madame Z erased the message from the board. She held the gun out to Steve again, but he refused to take it. “Don’t treat it differently from anything else. Remember, blue, Steve Harrington, 20.”

The older boy took another breath and grasped the gun a second time. It took fifteen more, exhausting tries before the first thing he wrote on his board was “Adam Culver, age 23, died 1896, stole gun from brother.”

Steve wiped his arm across his brow. He was sweating, and he really wanted to sit down. He also wouldn’t object to a cold drink, anything to get the residual taste of copper out of his mouth. “Maybe he’s done enough today?” Dustin suggested. He didn’t like the color of his friend’s skin right then.

“One more thing.” Madame Z returned the revolver to the top shelf. She took off the glove and tossed it aside. 

“A break would be nice,” Steve commented.

“Mediums don’t get breaks, sweet cheeks. It’s not something you can turn off.” Madame Z pulled the cover off the large object at the back of the room and Steve instantly felt worse. It was a large, wooden cupboard. It was banged up, like it’d been used well throughout its life. If Steve had been given it, he would have put it out by the road with a “Free” sign tacked to it, let someone else haul it off and deal with it. 

On the surface, it seemed like your usual, used piece of furniture, but it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt sad and angry and scared. The temperature in the room around them dropped a good twenty degrees. “Oh, I felt that,” Dustin remarked, drawing his arms up across his chest.

“What is that?” Steve struggled to ask.

“Mediums don’t get breaks,” Madame Z repeated. “All you can do is learn to control it. Open the double set of doors,” she instructed, indicating the cupboard.

“Steve do not open the double set of doors,” Dustin countered. Madame Z gave him a look.

“It’s just a cupboard, Steve. I assure you, we’re all perfectly safe.”

Steve didn’t trust Madame Z as far as she could throw her, but now he was compelled to open those doors. Almost against his will, he stepped forward, reached out, and pulled on the handle. The boy who bounded out of the cabinet seemed more animal than human. He was dirty and skinny. He screamed, a blood curdling wail as he crawled towards Steve on all fours. Steve screamed in return and fell back, hitting the ground hard. He scrambled back as quickly as he could, but the angry boy was still coming. In his head, Steve could see images of the boy being shoved in the cupboard and kept there until he’d wasted away. “Let me help you!” Steve wanted to call to him. “Let me save you!”

Madame Z closed the doors on the cabinet with force and just like that, the boy was gone. Steve blinked twice and took a breath. Dustin was still screaming behind him. “Did you see it?” Steve wanted to know.

“No, you started screaming, and then I was screaming,” Dustin explained.

Steve looked at Madame Z. “Who was that boy?”

“There was a boy?” Dustin was even more freaked now. “I need some air.” He stepped out onto the other side of the curtain.

“You tell me,” the medium tossed back at Steve. 

Steve sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. “He was locked in that cabinet, abandoned and abused. They left him to die in there.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know. Please don’t open it again,” Steve begged.

“Ezekiel Hillard,” Madame Z supplied for him. “An odd child in a family already full of children. The family didn’t know what to do with him, so they put him in there. That cabinet was passed through the family, but it brought a certain amount of destruction with it, breaking up one home after another. I bought it from the last surviving Hillard’s estate. It got too cumbersome to tote around with me, so I sold it to Rod.”

“You should burn it, destroy it.”

“Why would I want to do that?” Madame Z looked at the cabinet. “It made me some good money back in the day. Destroying it won’t save poor Ezekiel if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Steve took another breath. “How do we help him?” He couldn’t get the image of that scared and livid boy out of his mind.

Madame Z knelt before him; her face hard as stone. “It’s not your job to save them.”

“Then what’s the point?” Steve wanted to know. Really, what was the good in having these powers if he couldn’t do anything useful with them? His eyes bore back into hers.

Dustin stepped back into the room and looked at the two of them. “Am I interrupting something?”

Suddenly, Rod was behind him. He had surprising agility for an old man. “Hot pies out of the oven. Anyone interested?”

As they headed for the car, one box of assorted pies richer, Dustin stopped and made his usual plea. “Can I drive for a little bit, Steve, please? I promise I’m ready for the Interstate, I’ll be super careful.”

Steve felt his usual defenses crumble. It might have been his total exhaustion, or the fact that he couldn’t keep a straight thought in his mind, but he heard himself mumbling yes. His hands feebly handed the keys over. 

“Yes!” Dustin deposited the box in the backset and climbed into the driver’s seat. 

Madame Z didn’t say anything, but she hurried to claim the passenger’s seat. “Uh, that’s Steve’s seat,” Dustin interjected.

“I taught four of my brothers to drive, you’re fine,” she assured him.

“Steve,” Dustin protested and looked back at his friend.

The older boy shrugged. He felt oddly detached from reality at the moment. “What’s it matter, Dustin?” And really, what did it matter when there were haunted cabinets and Russian conspiracies and legitimate monsters? “Just don’t wreck my car.” Part of him wanted to lay down on the seat and go to sleep, but he figured he should pay some sort of attention to the situation at hand.

Dustin gave Madame Z an uneasy look, but he started the car and gently pulled out onto the road. As they approached the on ramp to the Interstate, Dustin felt his anxiety rising. “Maybe I can’t do this,” he second guessed himself. 

“A little late for that,” Madame Z observed. “Maintain your speed, check your mirror, find a hole, and get in there.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dustin retorted.

“What, are you chicken, gonna stall out on the entrance ramp?”

“I am not chicken. I have faced down monsters, ghosts, and Russians, I can do this!” Dustin sped up, checked the mirror, and merged effortlessly into traffic. It was only after he’d succeeded that he realized what he’d done. “Hey, I did it!”

“Works every time,” Madame Z commented.

“Steve, I did it!”

“Good job, buddy.”

Madame Z lit another cigarette. Steve was surprised she had any left to smoke. “Now tell me more about these monsters and Russians.”

“Role play game,” Dustin responded, because he really did have an answer for everything.

“Figures.” Madame Z took a long drag on her cigarette. She looked back at Steve. “Some homework for you. Look through old newspapers for any murder reports, the grislier the better. Read through them and ignore all the details. All I want to know is name, date, and where the person lived. That’s it. The rest doesn’t matter.” She turned back around and switched on the radio.

“It matters,” Steve mumbled and closed his eyes.

As the stars were starting to dot the sky, they returned Madame Z to her hotel. “Pick me up tomorrow at eleven,” she instructed them. “I gotta take my car to the shop, and then we’ll have our next lesson. Night, boys.” She gathered her share of the pies and disappeared inside her room.

“Where to now?” Dustin asked as Steve slid into the passenger seat.

“I know a place.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were at the quarry. They made sure to park away from all the other cars with their fogged over windows. “Is that what people do here at night?” Dustin turned up his nose.

“Uh, yeah, some people.” Steve took the keys when Dustin turned off the car. They took the box of pies and walked around to the back of the car and sat on the trunk. The night sky was clear above them.

For a moment, they ate their pies in silence. “If I’m gonna do this, learn how to be a medium, I’m gonna need moments like this,” Steve spoke at last.

“Eating Rod’s Homemade Pies at the quarry?”

Steve chuckled. “It sounds weird when you say it like that.”

“No weirder than anything else,” Dustin surmised, and Steve couldn’t argue with that. “But I get you,” Dustin assured. “And I’m here for you. No matter what.”

Steve nudged the younger boy with his elbow. “I know you are. But you better leave me a damn peach pie.”

“We should’ve bought more.”

“I’m not driving back there.”


End file.
